Real Betis spoil Arsenal's visit to Dublin despite Hincapie's header
Ismeal Kabia during the pre-season friendly match between Arsenal and Real Betis at the Aviva Stadium. Pic: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile.
Pre-season matches are largely for building fitness and player connections after a summer break. The result is irrelevant. Try telling that to 50,000 Arsenal fans, many of whom were seeing their heroes in the flesh for the first time last night. What a let-down.
Still robbed of recovering World Cup heavyweights such as Declan Rice, David Raya and Bukayo Saka, the demand to see the Premier League champions remained so intense that kick-off was delayed to allow Real Betis' team coach to battle through Dublin's rush-hour traffic.
There was a time when Arsenal's visits to Ireland were intimate affairs, played out in front of a few thousand supporters on grounds steeped in local history. Last night they returned to a very different stage.
A sell-out crowd of more than 51,000 packed the Aviva Stadium, turning a pre-season friendly into one of the summer's hottest tickets. It was a far cry from Arsenal's last appearance in Ireland, when Mikel Arteta's side faced Dundalk in the Europa League in December 2020 behind closed doors as the Covid pandemic silenced stadiums across Europe.
This time the soundtrack came from tens of thousands of Arsenal supporters, with only a scattering of Betis fans among the sea of red.
Few English clubs enjoy stronger ties with Ireland than Arsenal. Those links stretch back generations, long before pre-season tours became globe-trotting commercial exercises.
George Graham understood that when he brought Arsenal across the Irish Sea during his first summer as manager in 1986. The tour carried extra significance because of the Irish contingent within his squad. David O'Leary was already a Highbury favourite, while teenage Dubliner Niall Quinn was making his way in the game
By then Arsenal had become known as the "London Irish". Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton, O'Leary, Pat Rice, Sammy Nelson and Pat Jennings all became club legends, while Terry Neill managed the side. Their influence helped forge one of the strongest relationships between an English club and Irish football.
Jennings perhaps summed it up best. During one of Ireland's most turbulent periods, football united people from different backgrounds.
"Sammy Nelson is a Unionist and proud of it. Frank Stapleton is a Catholic," he reflected on the Arsenal website recently. "We didn't speak about it. We were there to play football. I think we were an example of how men from different backgrounds can mix."
Even Highbury carried an Irish imprint, with many of the labourers who built the famous stadium in 1913 having crossed the Irish Sea after working on London's Underground. More than a century later, Arsenal's Irish support remains as passionate as ever.
That passion now stretches far beyond Ireland.
On the train to Lansdowne Road, I met American Arsenal supporters from Washington DC who had spotted the fixture while holidaying in Europe.
"We're a global club now," one smiled before admitting: "We were really hoping Vinicius Junior and Bruno Guimaraes would be playing when we bought the tickets."
Bruno might make it when they next play this weekend in London, but any lingering hopes of that blockbuster Vini transfer diminished long before kick-off.
Their disappointment only deepened after two minutes when Viktor Gyokeres somehow squandered a glorious early chance.
Betis made Arsenal pay. Rodrigo Riquelme fired the Spaniards ahead before Colombian midfielder Nelson Deossa produced a stunning 25-yard strike to double the advantage, silencing a crowd that had arrived expecting a celebration.
Christos Tzolis briefly reignited the atmosphere. The Greek winger, signed this summer as Leandro Trossard's replacement, delivered the corner from which Piero Hincapie headed home to reduce the deficit.
The biggest roar before the interval, however, greeted the sight of Brazilian trio Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Magalhães warming up. Alongside Kai Havertz, Riccardo Calafiori, Ben White, Max Dowman and Myles Lewis-Skelly, these were the title-winning heroes the supporters had paid to see.
But Arsenal's defensive frailties continued. Former West Ham midfielder Pablo Fornals found acres of space to curl home Betis' third from distance, sending Arteta's side into half-time 3-1 down.
By the time the match ended, Arsenal had a side comprising mainly youth players, leaving Dublin with an unexpectedly flat vibe. Managed by former Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini, this seemed to mean more to the Spanish visitors than an Arsenal side trying to make a home away from home.
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