Ride Or Die World Cup Supporter

“I've always been very proud of being Brazilian, and football has been a big part of it, pretty much ever since I was born. Football is almost like a religion for us growing up. I always say my home country is Brazil, even though I've been in the UK for almost 10 years now, as I still have family over there. But now I have family here, too - a husband and a daughter who has both nationalities. What we’re trying to do with her is that she learns to be proud of having two cultures, and values that she's half British and half Brazilian.

Arsenal brought me and my husband Tim together. He always wrote articles about us and I commented on one and we started talking. I was in Brazil and he was in the UK so I was like, "well nothing is gonna happen between us." Then I went to study in Portugal for a few months and came to London, and he took me to my first Arsenal match. It was a terrible 3-2 defeat at Swansea, on a very cold January night. I had a terrible record of something like 10 defeats in a row for every away match that I went to!

I haven’t been as often since Eva was born, but I am always watching. We are always telling her about Arsenal. She has been to her first match - literally, the first shirt she wore when she was born was an Arsenal shirt. She was born the day after we won the FA Cup against Chelsea in 2020; I was literally in the hospital having contractions and watching the game on an iPad! We won, and she was born a few hours later on the day after.

After that, my fandom took on a life of its own. I never expected it would literally change my life. Because of Arsenal, I met my husband, and then I had my daughter - all because of a very random Andrey Arshavin signing back in 2009.”

According to arsenal’s website, Deborah described her passion for the team as the best thing that happened to her.