"it's not done"

on belonging, culture clubs, and our collective soccer return

May 26, 2026

here are words i organized into thoughts — you’ve read before, yeah? (no deadass, the literacy crisis has me genuinely asking these days).

saturn soccer return

30 years on from the last U.S. World Cup, i like to think that America is experiencing a “soccer return” — yes, like a Saturn return, but it’s less of a fight for your life at ages 27-32 and more of a return to playing an ACL-abusive, cardio-dominant sport at age 27 after letting it lie for the last 5-20 years.

from a dude whose knee ligaments are in the grippy sock #institution because i can’t give up the game, be safe, stretch, know your limits, and believe in yourself just 10% less. real keys to longevity.

me, pictured here, believing in myself 10% too much

not to brag, but i came of age when it was gay to play soccer in the U.S. — i’m sure many ballers can relate. but, seeing as everyone’s gay as of late, i’d argue what a perfect time for soccer to return. welcome back, diva!

jokes, but for real, football is back in a major way, and every brand and their mama wants you (yes, you) to know it. why does Hebrew National want me to know their hot dogs are “top bins?” do they even know what that means? why’s Chester Cheetah telling me “it’s not easy being Eze?” it barely rhymes??? oh great, Cole Palmer’s selling me Cepacol, great.

where there’s social capital, just know someone’s tryna 1) cap then 2) capitalize. everyone is wearing a kit these days, i just know Palantir and Lockheed Martin are salivating, trying to nab a Nike collab, get that sportswashing on. deel or no deel? no deel, obviously.

but through it all, for a silly little allegedly gay footballer like me, man oh man, am i happy because i can footballmaxx with my fellow girls and (allegedly) gays all summer — taking nostalgia hits to the face, playing FIFA Street, seeing legends trotted out, collective joy practices, i’m so hype. and not just because of the totally ethical and operating under normal socio-political circumstances FIFA World Cup but because…

my North London club…

have finally done it…

a brief oral history

football is probably my longest relationship. most of my moments off the pitch are spent counting down until i can get back on it.

whether it was my uncles and cousins in Mauritania, my father and sister in the U.S., or the teams and clubs i played for, i probably smile and laugh the most when a ball’s at my feet, and i’m with friends and family. my cousins back home conscripted me into Barça fandom (and who could blame them with Ronaldinho, Messi, Eto’o, etc on the pitch at the time) but a second love isn’t always as memorable as your first.

i fell in love with Arsenal Football Club in 2001 – i’m not from North London by any stretch of the imagination, but when i learned that one of my childhood heroes, Thierry Henry from the French WC squad, played there, my choice was made — might not be the deepest ball knowledge but idc

my mom still says “va va voom” to me, and we have never touched a Renault product

Henry was (and still is) cool incarnate to me — he’s done everything possible in the game, and commanded the respect of players, fans, and rivals alike. while i watched whatever games i could get my eyes on with Ljunberg and Bergkamp, my eyes kept being drawn to Viera (swear down, he looks like three of my uncles) and Touré (a West African last name). Campbell, Wiltord, Kanu, who i knew from watching Jay-Jay Okocha for Nigeria. Lauren, too – Cameroonian, friends with Samuel Eto’o and Marc-Vivien Foé (RIP).

like any comedy or soccer party i’ve been to, i found the Black people and locked tf in and haven’t had a complaint — besides the trophy drought, ofc

i wasn’t conscious of it really, but the gravitational pull of a mostly Black squad kept me coming back over and over again.

maybe it was playing football in the U.S. with very few people who looked like me (Kojo, Kwabena, you won’t be forgotten). most were hoopers or ran track with me.

maybe it was seeking family i missed back home in West Africa and getting to see them on the pitch.

either way, i sought belonging, and their legend built in my mind, then in my heart.

“...and they were invincible? …and they won the PL title? nah, that’s my club, those are my guys.” over time, I was on board with almost everyone, not just the Black ones — Arashavin, Fabregas, Cech, Sanchez, Cazorla, Nasri, Song, Giroud, Ramsey, Zinchenko, Bellerin, Xhaka, Pires, Ozil — thanks for your service, you played lovely ball.

little did i know it would be grey skies over my club for 22 years, but last Tuesday, a beam of pure ecstasy finally, finally, finally punctured those clouds.

the dark ages

to be completely honest, at the end of the aughts, i dipped in and out of fandom as my family dipped in and out of having cable, and i avoided my grades dipping so i could keep playing soccer. thank god for the internet — a sentence you can’t say much these days — because early chatrooms and blogs kept me abreast of the Arsenal highs and lows (i can’t even put the numbers 8 and 2 together in a sentence).

i watched rivalries transform over the last 20+ years from a computer screen — the rise of Pep in the Prem, the Leicester PL win (Vardy and Kante have my eternal respect), my legends finally retiring, the game slowly transforming to more algorithmic system ball than the creativity that i enjoyed from watching the Ronaldinhos and Zidanes that i grew up with.

i added Sagna, Cole, Walcott, Aubameyang, and Lassana Diarra (my mother’s name so that MEANT something to me) to my Black Gunner rolodex while having respect for the Drogbas, Balotellis, Pogbas, Kantes, Manés, etc on other rosters.

as with film, TV, and music, i loved learning about eras before mine — it’s like tracking a sample, a riff, a shot, a motif, etc back through history. i chose to do the same with Arsenal, asking:

“how did we land Le Prof, Mssr Wenger? wait — Japan?”
- one of the flyest managers of all time, i get why people can’t quit him
“who are Ian Wright and David Rocastle?”
- Rocky is definitely the Sidney Poitier of Arsenal, right?
“why do so many Black, African, and Caribbean people love Arsenal?”
- Africans went UP for the club this week
but most importantly: “when the fuck are we going to win another title?”
- nah, deadass when

the last decade of soccer for me has been… interesting to say the least.

9 years ago, i was slide tackled in a game and it ripped through three ligaments in my right knee. this came at a point in my life where actually playing was my direct connection to soccer, and suffice it to say, i needed to find a new relationship to football because my leg was straight wet linguini. i gave up ball. and, right there again, Arsenal — sitting around the top 5 but still not near winning the Premiership.

i tapped back into the blogs only to find Wenger was on his way out, and Pep’s dynasty with City was only getting started. i returned to a club with an unsure future at a time when my own future playing soccer was also in the air. it felt like i was supposed to be on this journey with them at that time. rebuild, rebuild, rebuild.

we’ll just skip the Emery era, shall we? jump riiiiiight past that to the Starboy and Arteta.

i knew Mikel Arteta from the end of the Van Persie (sigh) era. a legend in his own right, but truthfully, i did not expect for him to deliver in any way, shape, or form – after 20+ years of Wenger and one year of Emery, i genuinely thought we were going to jump from manager to manager until we found the next Arsene Wenger. but we stuck with him. and i’m happy we did.

even the most annoying anti-Arteta man you know (who couldn’t give you a proper strategy to get us over the line themselves, mind you), has him to thank for his tenacity.

“The Arsenal are Premier League Champions”

hearing those words so many times over the last week has challenged my command of language because the feelings packed into that sentence for me cannot be corralled into a single word or a single sentence. it took me back.

as a lifelong intellectualizer and writer, sometimes i do have to remind myself to sit and feel rather than describe what i’m feeling. that’s exactly what i did as the full-time whistle was blown on Bournemouth’s draw with Manchester City on Tuesday, May 19th.

of course, i screamed at the ref to blow the whistle time and time again, knowing that my personal greatest thief of joy was a Pep Guardiola-led squad on more than one occasion this Premier League season and in many before.

when the whistle blew, a sense of calm that i’ve never experienced watching sports came over me.

chills. goosebumps (Arsenal and Knicks fan, so you can do the math). then, tears — nothing crazy, i wasn’t bawling, but joyous tears left my eyes.

it was done. the drought was over. it wasn’t pretty (bring back my free-flowing halal ball!!!) but it was done.

no more bad faith bants…

trolling about second place from people who were never in the conversation…

Spurs doing a two-step with relegation (siri cue up Zac Efron’s 17 Again)…

Chelsea in freefall (world champions of what??? one game a week next year)…

Ian Wright celebrating in the streets…

Anne Hathaway, as a concept…

Thierry Henry’s legacy with the club has proved to be a chapter and not the end of the story…

looking forward, not just backward at glory days…

Arsenal have done it — the first Premier League title for the club that i’ve loved since i was a boy in 22 years.

i think about who i was when i was introduced to the club. i mean, who was anybody – two decades is actually a lifetime ago. back then, I was stargazing at my football heroes. i was innocent, impressionable, and optimistic.

today, i’m not that innocent (no Britney), you can’t tell me shit (i mean, have you met most people? idiots), and that optimism, as it related to Arsenal, had been dormant for quite a while.

over the past 10 months, i finally got to see a team and a culture i invested in as a kid get to glory after three straight second-place finishes.

i got to watch Bukayo Saka, Miles Lewis-Skelly, and Eberechi Eze, Black boys, live their boyhood dreams for the club, write their own destinies, and become the heroes of a new generation.

i watched a project that was invested in over 7 seasons come to fruition by Mikel Arteta, surpassing his own mentor at the end. first former player to bring his old club a trophy.

i watched the tenacity of a team with the burden of legacy weighing them down, and armchair tacticians alongside twitter finger trolls (both fans of Arsenal and performative enemies of us) taking aim with the accuracy of a Star Wars stormtrooper.

it was written.

as i sat on the couch and felt the joy rush my veins, i scrolled through group chats, old and new, to celebrate, watched each and every reaction video on instagram to the squad learning the won the prem, teared up at fathers waking up their sons to tell them they were champions, mothers and daughters dancing, and i believe someone swinging a lime scooter around his head in front of the Emirates.

i watched Spurs fans take the piss when surrounded by Gunners on the tube, laughed as Bournemouth’s Eli Junior Kroupi was dapped up by local Arsenal fans, and of course, Zohran Mamdani and Spike Lee celebrating their dedications to the North London club they publicly stood behind together.

i saw girlfriends of Arsenal fans “finally understand” their boyfriends, seeing the “healthy” passion and outbursts of joy (depends on the doctor you ask). watching so-called hard men weep at a dream that was out of their reach, finally coming to fruition. seeing strangers hug. seeing strangers crash out. it’s all lovely to me, it’s why i can’t quit it.

as someone who doesn’t drink or take drugs, i often get asked what my vice is and it might be football, in any form it comes. but this hit…

mad he did it first, proud he did it at all

what did i personally do? i texted a former boss (pretty sure being a Gunner got me the job), dapped up strangers in the street, hugged my friends, and screamed “what do we think of Tottenham?” in the streets of Brooklyn.

everything felt right with the world, and although 99.9% of Arsenal fans are strangers, they all felt like family to me.

except Piers Morgan…

shame that.

coming together

i am often clowned by my peers for romanticizing football (Amin, come and see me, i’m outside. nah jk you’re alright).

i genuinely don’t see how you can’t romanticize it, it’s beautiful. the way it brings people together, the way it can pull at your heartstrings, the way it taught me to express myself, the way it taught me to navigate conflict in real time, but most importantly, the way it has shaped and influenced culture. it taught me patience, creativity, taught me to fix mistakes through my next actions and not just words. when i track back behaviors and thought patterns or build plans for next steps, football is a base language in my brain’s CPU.

i romanticize it, yes, but i don’t claim to own it. players, clubs, managers, fans – we’re all simply vessels to the beautiful game. the game itself is pure; people with agendas taint it — wait, is this what Black Mirror has always been about?

it belongs to people of all ages, of all nations, and i hope its expansion in recent years means more fans, more spaces (that aren’t pay-to-play), more investment (into people, not paywalled development programs), and more togetherness.

most of my enjoyment of the sport comes from supporting my club not just bantering with strangers (because i have a robust life) but i can’t lie…
i’m about to become a menace, robustness on pause for a bit).

with global footballmania up 1000% (whether you’re American or just excited about the World Cup), an Arsenal PL title, and newbies marinating in “cool” factor that comes with being a fan of a Black culture-forward club, i’m a little cautious about the future. Protective in not a possessive way but in a wary, caring way.

every aspect of Blackness is extracted and commodified if you give it enough time with the systems and institutions that we operate within — it’s a capital that’s ill-defined intentionally by it’s handlers and weathered generations of critiques of appropriation and theft without missing a beat.

as a Black person and Black player who supports arguably one of the Blackest clubs in prem history (you can argue, i won’t because i’m right), i am of course a bit trepidatious about how culture bound tightly to Blackness is co-opted.

with new Arsenal fans, people who are experiencing their personal soccer returns this year with a World Cup, and every brand and country doing collaborations that mirror the Arsenal marketing strategies of recent years (see the Jamaica kit and Pan-African kit), my eyes are wide open — especially as Arsenal’s sponsors and partners can slip under the radar as BDS targets with the cover of their alignment with a culture club.

don’t get me wrong, the club represents the multiculturalism of London and the sport itself, and if you’re looking for belonging in your new sports fixation, welcome! and good luck — I joined up and didn’t see a trophy lift since puberty.

i myself have been bringing people who want to belong to a club but don’t know where to start to games, giving them kits from my own closet.

i know we live through a “once in a lifetime experience” every day these days, but i just want new fans to feel the gravity of the moment, the history of the club, how much was invested into Black players and Black fans alike, and how influence and passion of this scale can’t be manufactured but only fracked. if we don’t keep that heritage protected, we invite or become the agents of dilution for such a rich legacy.

in my opinion, this is the issue with the recent conception of “community” at large:
OGs build the fire and find success
new members join, eager to add gas to the flame, and can tend to take up more space than they take in the history
the fanbase/community/organizing group looks like more and more of a stranger over time until becoming the very thing it stood against
elders aren’t heard/respected, children aren’t included, and this “community” has no conception of past, doesn’t include the future, and becomes atomized and self-posssesed rather than connected and inclusive

Arsenal has a culture, a history, and a lineage that I’m proud to be part of and prouder still that I stuck it out. i think it’s dumb to pretend you had to suffer to achieve anything at all, but i do believe it is a requirement to know what came before to build a better future.

i critique the club because I love it and pray that the evolution of the club continues to invest in its community and divest from partnerships and co-optations that threaten the integrity of the club and its millions of fans worldwide.

if any of you ghouls are trying to make a Sidetalk N5 Edition, i’ll strangle you myself, you hear me?

culture is to be shared, not commodified, and while i fear we’re still too far down the road, i think a reminder is in order to remain vigilant.

islington and beyond

okay. we drifted towards the critical a little more than i wanted, but i want to say that first and foremost, i plan on enjoying the W.

i can’t wait to start putting Max Dowman and Viktor Gyokeres in conversations that they absolutely don’t need to be in.

i can’t wait for the Champions League final. we want it all.

i can’t wait for the Community Shield game against City. different game next season.

i can’t wait for next year’s title race.

a lot of people have a lot to say about the season, how it was won, missing Wengerball, the strength of the Prem this year, how they feel about Arteta, about the transfer market, etc but for the love of all that is holy, shut the fuck up and live in the present and be happy for like a moment.

just this one.

soak it all in, even the hate and banter.

the love for the Arsenal is so strong that it drowns out parades and celebrations for any other club that’s lifted the trophy in recent years. mfs had to come together like Voltron to try to clip our wings, but still we fly.

perhaps it should be no surprise that such a multicultural, inclusive entity that celebrates its diversity like Arsenal FC would be collectively reviled in times of great xenophobia and anti-Blackness both in England and globally.
some Gooners might be confused, but for many non-white fans, that’s simply Tuesday. we move.

from the current Black man to the little Black boy who started loving this club all those years ago… we did it. get your lick back. stunt on these hoes. have your fun, you earned it.

North London forever ❤️🤍 — I’ll see you all in Islington next Sunday.