By the next morning, the sun had barely lifted, but the team was already outside the hotel stretching along the pavent while Arteta checked his watch.
He watched as the groggy expressions on the faces of his players get washed away by the stretches, and once everyone settled, he gave a short nod as they set off through the town in a steady group jog.
Locals spotted them almost imdiately, with a few early commuters pausing near street corners and nudging each other gently when they realised who was running past.
No one approached or shouted; they kept a respectful distance as phones ca out quietly, held low or raised discreetly for a quick picture or a short video as the squad moved down the sloping streets in their matching training kits.
The run didn’t last long, but it ward everyone up enough to shake off whatever travel still clung to them.
They looped back toward the Stadio Moretti, entering through one of the side gates as staff prepared the pitch for the day’s work.
The grass held the faint mix of water and sunlight, and cones had already been lined in neat grids.
Arteta gathered them for a few instructions, though he barely got through his plan before Saliba raised a hand.
"Let the defenders take the attackers today. Make it competitive."
Gabriel backed him imdiately.
"It’ll sharpen us for the final."
Arteta weighed it for a mont, then nodded after a while, since they had ti to spare anyway.
"Fine. We’ll run it that way."
Once the session started, defenders found out soon enough how good a sharpening they would be getting.
Saliba and Gabriel set the line high, pushing into the forward’s space with confidence.
But the attackers didn’t seem bothered, and once Izan got on the ball, it got a whole lot easier for the attackers.
His passes ca in shapes that shouldn’t have been possible at that pace.
Curved balls that t a run before the run was made, while cutbacks threaded through gaps that closed a second later.
Gyokeres, the newest on the team sheet, found himself with balls in spaces he didn’t even realise he had gotten to.
He moved as if soone had whispered the picture to him beforehand, drifting between Saliba’s shoulder and Gabriel’s blind spot.
Izan slipped him one ball from deep that rolled past Gabriel tight enough to make him stop and look at the grass, and Gyokeres didn’t even need to sprint.
He took one touch and buried it without thinking, then jogged backwards with a grin that he tried to hide but failed.
The pattern kept repeating as the other forwards found chances they hadn’t gotten before.
Trossard received a ball in stride that curved outward before curling back to his feet, while Havertz nodded one down after a lofted pass that looked too casual to be intentional.
Every ti Izan had space, the defenders braced like they were waiting for sothing they didn’t quite understand.
Gyokeres drifted toward Odegaard as play reset again with a different set of attackers and Izan being the only constant.
He watched Izan trap a ball on the pitch and look up like he was choosing from a nu.
"How don’t you people score fifty goals a season?" Gyokeres asked quietly.
Odegaard shrugged with both palms up.
"Ask him. We just try to keep up."
Gyokeres shook his head, almost laughing under his breath as he backed into position again.
The session rolled on, and every pass pushed the tempo higher.
The defenders got their wish for intensity, though none of them had expected it to feel like this.
The sun climbed higher, staff moved equipnt around the pitch, and the players kept at it until Arteta finally blew the whistle.
After that, Gyökeres walked off the pitch with a quiet confidence that hadn’t been there when the session began.
His shirt clung to him, his hair was a ss, and his breathing was still heavy, but his expression said everything.
He looked like a man who had just realised the kitchen at his new club might never run out of food.
He tugged at the bottom of his shirt as he headed toward the huddle of players forming near Arteta, but the small curl at the corner of his mouth refused to leave.
It was that look a striker gets when he has tasted the service he’ll be living off for the next few seasons.
A look that said he had already pictured a few headlines with his na in them.
Not long after training wrapped, the dia team got to work.
They had been filming the entire session from three angles, and by the ti the players were showering, clips were already being cut and sent around the room for approval.
The videos went up online in a small burst rather than a single post.
1 minute here.
90 seconds there.
A slow-motion angle for the pass that split Saliba and Gabriel.
Another one with Arteta watching sothing unfold and nodding once as if he had expected every detail.
Fans caught on imdiately as the comnts began rolling in within seconds.
Clipped reactions.
Jokes and part warnings to Tottenham.
People didn’t need context.
They didn’t even need the full session.
Just the way the ball moved was enough for the internet to make its judgnt.
Most of the replies circled back to one idea.
Tottenham might be in trouble when the Super Cup kicked off.
By the ti the players regrouped for dinner, the notification tabs on their phones were already a ss.
So of them ignored it. So didn’t. But they all felt the sa thing when they saw the clips again on their feeds.
Their team was looking more and more like a squad that could be the dominant side in football for years to co.
Just like that, the next couple of days slipped by.
Training in the mornings, analysis in the afternoons, and rest in the evenings, though a few players like Lewis Skelly and Nwaneri would tell you that sleep was for the weak.
By the ti the matchday arrived, Udine had changed.
The calm streets that had welcod the players earlier in the week were now marked by pockets of colour.
Arsenal red and white on one side of a square and Spurs navy and white on the other.
The locals watched from cafés and doorways as the fans moved around town in clusters.
Most behaved themselves, but the energy was exciting, drawing in people who weren’t even fans of either club as the ga neared.
A song would break out from one end of a street, only for another to rise from the opposite side.
No one crossed into the wrong group, and no one wanted to test that boundary.
Every now and then, police patrols drifted between the groups.
Not intervening, just watching, reminding both sets of supporters that there was a match to get to, not a battlefield.
Still, the hostility was written on faces and carried in the way people stared across the road.
For a mont, Udine felt like north London had been transplanted into it.
As kickoff drew closer, the flow of fans toward Stadio Friuli beca steady.
The stadium stood tucked between quiet neighbourhoods and older streets, and tonight it looked like it was straining to contain the noise being generated outside its gates.
Inside, once the stands began to fill, the noise layered itself.
Spurs supporters gathered near one corner and tried to out-sing the Arsenal end, only to be drowned out once the next wave of red shirts arrived.
"What do you think of Tottenham?" a fan would raise, leading to the consequent replies that eventually got Tottenham being called "shit."
The countdown toward warmups didn’t take long.
People barely had ti to settle into their seats before the music shifted and the pitchside staff gave the signal.
A ripple of movent travelled through the stadium as caras lifted, phones rose, and voices shifted from chatter to focused anticipation.
Then the players walked out.
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