Aiming for History

Manchester United was the defending champion, the team with the swagger and a roster of stars that sparkled and flashed like the diamond stud in Rio Ferdinand’s ear.

Man U finished third.

Chelsea was the brash newcomer, the team with a billionaire owner, Russian oil tycoon Roman Abramovich, who spent $175 million last July on players he hoped would bring the club its first title in half a century.

Chelsea finished second.

And Arsenal?

Well, Arsenal was the team that once had been labeled boring. Successful, yes, but, oh, so dull.

Not anymore.

Today, the Gunners stand on the threshold of soccer history. If they can avoid defeat in their final game of the English Premier League season Saturday, they will achieve something that has not been accomplished in England for 115 years.

If Arsenal (25-0-12) wins or ties at home against Leicester City, it will have gone undefeated this season in league play -- 38 games without a loss in arguably the world’s toughest and most competitive league.

The last, and only, English team to do that was Preston North End, in 1889 -- and Preston played only 22 games.

“Immortality” is not a word to be tossed about lightly, but it has been used with uncommon abandon this week around the Gunners’ soon-to-be-former home at Highbury Stadium in London.

Arsenal Coach Arsene Wenger said he believes his players, who clinched the league championship with four games remaining, will achieve sporting “immortality” if they can hold it together for 90 more minutes against a team that has been relegated to lower competition for next season.

“Saturday’s game is like a final for us,” the 54-year-old Frenchman said. “The players don’t want to let it slip away. But you can always lose a game, even against a team that already is relegated.

“So we must be focused. There are no regrets when you give everything, so we must be fully prepared to achieve that record.”

The Gunners have struggled to keep their momentum since winning the championship with a 2-2 tie against north London rival Tottenham Hotspur on April 25. In three games since then, they have won once and been tied twice, scoring only two goals.

“I don’t think it’s about tiredness, I think it’s just that the players are doing what is needed not to lose, and nothing more,” Wenger said.

The players will get the credit if Arsenal does go undefeated, but the Strasbourg-born Wenger, since coming to England as a relatively unknown coach in 1996, has won the league championships three times and the F.A. Cup three times.

The European Champions League has escaped him, but David Dein, Arsenal’s vice chairman, told BBC Radio recently that the coach could stay forever if he wanted to.

“I call Arsene Wenger the miracle worker because he has achieved miracles,” Dein said. “He has got a job for life, simple as that.”

Midfielder Ray Parlour, who joined the team in 1989, has seen Arsenal transformed under Wenger.

“The club has changed massively since I first came here,” he said. “In fact, it’s probably come about 100 years forward ... the expectations are really high now.

“To be unbeaten with one game left ... is unbelievable. It’s never been done before [in the modern era] and it would be very difficult to do it again because it’s such a long, hard season.

“People don’t realize how hard it is. You’re playing three games a week at Christmas and sooner or later you’re going to get a bit of bad luck, or key men are going to get injured or suspended.”

Arsenal, like any other top European team, relies not on home-grown talent but rather on an international cast of characters. This season, the Gunners have used 34 players from 15 countries on three continents. Chief among them, of course, is French striker Thierry Henry, who this month was named England’s player of the year for the second consecutive season.

And Wenger’s success has been achieved without the financial resources of some rival teams.

As shrewd in the transfer market as he is on the field, Wenger has resisted the sort of spending splurges that characterize ultra-wealthy Manchester United and, more recently, London neighbor Chelsea.

Last season, when Manchester United came from far off the pace to edge Arsenal for the title, Wenger was philosophical about it.

“It may be considered a disaster at this club to finish second, but it’s not too bad, since we have a 50% less budget than United,” he said.

He then set about getting the title back, thus renewing the best coaching rivalry in English soccer -- with Manchester United Coach Sir Alex Ferguson.

Ferguson, in 2003, told England’s Daily Mirror that it was Arsenal that swaggered, not Manchester United.

“When you are overconfident, as Arsenal has been, the nature of football is that it will come back and kick you in the teeth,” Ferguson said. “It is a dangerous game, and you wouldn’t catch us acting like that.”

True or not, Wenger has reacted to the 62-year-old Scot’s bluster with characteristic Gallic calm.

“The rivalry is stimulating,” he said. “I like to think a certain respect has grown between us, even though at first there was a certain rejection from both sides.”

Now Wenger is poised to do what even the hugely successful Ferguson has never done -- despite Ferguson’s seven English championships, four F.A. Cups and a European Champions League triumph since 1986.

“We don’t want to lose a game now, but football is football,” he said. “You can be in front of a marathon and then someone catches you with just 500 yards to go. It’s part of it.

“What we have done until now, in winning the title without losing a game, is tremendous. But we want to give it our best shot until the end.”

Next season will be Arsenal’s final one at Highbury. A 60,000-seat stadium will be ready for the Gunners at nearby Ashburton Grove in 2006.

Wenger, for one, would like to move in as champion.

“I feel we can get better and better,” he said on the club’s website. “I am happy because we have won the Premiership title and the F.A. Cup three times [apiece] since I have been here.

“We have been consistent, we have kept the results going and the quality has risen. But we have to start again next season. If we lose two games at the start, then we know everybody will be saying we are nobody.”

Saturday, Arsenal will be handed the Premier League trophy in front of its own fans. Sunday, the team will parade it through north London. Wenger expects to relish both moments -- unbeaten or not.

“Some big clubs, who spend as much money as we do, wait for 50 years to win the championship,” he said. “So if we cannot enjoy it then we are really foolish.”

Times wire services contributed to this report.

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Unconquered

Arsenal’s unbeaten run (25-0-12) through the English Premier League, heading into Saturday’s season finale:

*--* Date Opponent Result Aug. 16 Everton W 2-1 Aug. 24 at Middlesbrough W 4-0 Aug. 27 Aston Villa W 2-0 Aug. 31 at Manchester City W 2-1 Sept. 13 Portsmouth T 1-1 Sept. 21 at Manchester T 0-0 United Sept. 26 Newcastle United W 3-2 Oct. 4 at Liverpool W 2-1 Oct. 18 Chelsea W 2-1 Oct. 26 at Charlton T 1-1 Athletic Nov. 1 at Leeds United W 4-1 Nov. 8 Tottenham Hotspur W 2-1 Nov. 22 at Birmingham City W 3-0 Nov. 30 Fulham T 0-0 Dec. 6 at Leicester City T 1-1 Dec. 14 Blackburn Rovers W 1-0 Dec. 20 at Bolton Wanderers T 1-1 Dec. 26 Wolverhamton W 3-0 Dec. 29 at Southampton W 1-0 Jan. 7 at Everton T 1-1 Jan. 10 Middlesbrough W 4-1 Jan. 18 at Aston Villa W 2-0 Feb. 1 Manchester City W 2-1 Feb. 7 at Wolverhamton W 3-1 Feb. 10 Southampton W 2-0 Feb. 21 at Chelsea W 2-1 Feb. 28 Charlton Athletic W 2-1 March 13 at Blackburn Rovers W 2-0 March 20 Bolton Wanderers W 2-1 March 28 Manchester United T 1-1 April 9 Liverpool W 4-2 April 11 at Newcastle United T 0-0 April 16 Leeds United W 5-0 April 25 * at Tottenham T 2-2 Hotspur May 1 Birmingham City T 0-0 May 4 at Portsmouth T 1-1 May 9 at Fulham W 1-0 Saturday Leicester City * Clinched Premier League championship

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Comparable streaks without a loss:

* In the 1888-89 English season, Preston North End went undefeated at 18-0-4 to win the first division championship.

* In 1893-94, Liverpool went undefeated at 22-0-6 to win the English second division title.

* Nottingham Forest went a record 42 games without a loss in England over two seasons in 1977 and 1978. Arsenal’s current unbeaten streak over two seasons is at 39 games.

* In Spain, Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid each went undefeated in 18 games while winning the Spanish championship in 1930 and 1932, respectively.

* In Italy, AC Milan went 22-0-12 while winning the Serie A title in 1992 as part of an unbeaten run of 58 games over three seasons.

* In the Netherlands, Ajax Amsterdam was unbeaten in the 1994-95 season as part of a 52-game undefeated streak.