Podolski: “I am always happy”

Arsenal held an official media open day on Wednesday ahead of the F.A. Cup Final, Tim Stillman went along for Arseblog News with a Dictaphone and a notepad.

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There aren’t many characters at Arsenal as bright eyed and bushy tailed as Lukas Podolski. The German has made a name for himself with his perennially cheeky grin and camera hogging tendencies, as well as his jackhammer of a left foot. The always smirking German looks as relaxed as you’d expect in a sleeveless training top, his striking Cologne tattoo clearly visible on his right arm. “Hello!” he exclaims cheerily to the assembled hacks as he takes his seat.

Life has been good for Podolski since Arsenal’s penalty shootout victory against Wigan at Wembley. He has started all five of Arsenal’s games since and has only been substituted once in that time. He cut a frustrated figure as he was replaced in a nervy semi-final game with Wigan. In keeping with his reputation as one of life’s sunnier sorts, Podolski cuts off a journalist that asks him about that game before he can finish his question.

“Lukas, last month you spoke of your unhappiness of your situation,” before the German interrupted, “I am never unhappy, I am always happy!”

Yet when the final kicks off this afternoon, Podolski knows Arsenal will have to mean business. He realises that the final will have a transformative effect on how the season is viewed for the Gunners. “When you finish 4th, I mean, it is ok. But if we win the cup, then it is a great season. This is the biggest cup with the biggest history in the world. When you win nothing for 9 years and you have the chance now, the pressure is big, but we have a lot of players with a lot of big games, we have international players.”

Perhaps in keeping with his light-hearted persona, Podolski initially appears a little testy when Hull are described as “the underdogs” by a journalist. “When you are in a final, you don’t have underdogs. You play against a strong team. They will fight, run and give their all until the end.”

However, that message is perhaps undermined when he follows with, “Of course, we are the favourites because we are the better team,” before qualifying that with, “It is one game, it is not easy.” Later in the interview, the German has to ask a reporter to repeat the name of Hull’s Matty Fryatt some three times before the penny drops. “I don’t look at the names of who we are playing, we focus on our game.”

It might be a popular question for a German to have to field, but when pressed as to whether Arsenal have practiced penalties, “We want to finish the game in 90 minutes. If we get to penalties, we have a lot of great players who can score penalties, but our focus is to win the game after the 90 minutes.”

The forward admits that the team were “nervous” about the Wigan semi-final, but believes that nerves won’t be an issue for the final. “It was a big game and we’d lost a couple of games before, but after this game we have had a good run until now and we have a lot of confidence and we are strong enough to win this game.”

Podolski then fields a few questions in German, giving his familiar “a-ha!” retort to a German reporter he clearly recognises. And with that, he cheerily skips out of the room with a “bye!” and a wave. Arsenal fans will hope Arsenal’s happiest man is positively beaming at 7pm. LD.

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