Julio Baptista arrived at Arsenal in the summer of 2006 - a year too late, but still able to excite the fans. Along with the signing of Gallas, he helped to snowball the fans' expectations to gargantuan proportions that would quickly dissipate into disappointment. Gallas was mostly injured and under-par, and Baptista was an almighty, almighty flop.

He arrived with this tag and reputation of being "The Beast" - a goal-scoring powerhouse that could barge past anyone and thump in the goals. Well. He wasn't.

Apart from one storming performance against Liverpool where he scored 4 goals in our 6-3 Carling Cup win at Anfield, he was awful. And to be honest, that game was such an anomaly that I can't believe it even happened. Not only did we go to Anfield and score 6 goals, but Baptista scored 4 (and missed a penalty, which isn't surprising), Aliadiere scored the first and setup 3 more, and ALEX SONG SCORED. Freakish.

He really did seem like a nice earnest lad who gave his best, and to his credit he ended the season with 10 goals (although 6 of those were in 2 Carling Cup games), but he was rubbish - a big lumbering cow more than any sort of fearsome beast, his missed chances deprived us of so many wins.

And why am I suddenly bringing up "The Beast" all of a sudden? Because a quote I came across today from Ryan Babel only serves to confirm what we all suspected... that despite his bulk, incredible muscle percentage and density, and ninja-turtle like exterior, he was just a great big softie:

"A big body doesn't mean you're strong. I understand from Robin van Persie at Arsenal that Julio Baptista isn't strong at all, even though he's a massive guy." - Ryan Babel

Not strong at all... hilarious stuff really, considering that his size and strenth were one of the few things still going in his favour. But I think we all knew what the real deal was when PSV's frail looking Chinese left-back Sun Xiang comprehensively barged Baptista to the ground in a soft little shoulder-to-shoulder encounter.

Not to say that he's a bad player though, he isn't - his performances for Sevilla were oustanding, and he showed in flashes at the Copa America how good he can be. The problem is that he's just very limited. He's not mobile, not that quick or strong, and needs too much time and space. He was found out in fast pace of the Premiership, and especially so in Arsenal's quick passing-and-moving system.

The other problem with Baptista, is that he thinks he's better than he is. We've all heard the stories about how clumsy he was in his Sao Paulo days, and how the fans used to laugh and call him a clown, but did you know that they also used to call him "Zidane"? Not out of any recognition of his oustanding abilities, but rather the lack thereof, and his continual attempts to try tricks and skills that he was so far from mastering, that they often ended in complete embarassment.

Good luck to him, and here's some highlights from his one "good game" for Arsenal:

Young Arsenal midfielder Denilson has proved to be quite a sensation this season. The 19 year old arrived as an unknown (both in Brazil and Europe) when he was signed from Sao Paulo last summer, but he has shown fantastic attitude, committment and skill.

He's very tenacious and highly confident (Thierry henry said he was like Cesc - when he came in for training he showed no nerves, and played like he owned the place). He's had no problems settling in, and has turned in some sterling performances having forced his way into the team since December. Although his inexperience has shown, he will get better and better.

He's been called up for Brazil already this season (without having played), and I wouldn't be surprised to see him goto the Copa America this summer and show the world what he's capable of. Some of the top players like Gilberto and Emerson have had very difficult seasons, so Denilson playing would give them a break. Dunga also has a fondness for unheralded players, so i'm fully expecting this to happen. Since Denilson hasn't played a whole lot this year, he would be in good shape for the Copa America and it would give him great experience for the coming season at Ashburton Grove.

Judging by the rumours going around, Julio Baptista might will be here next season. Myles Palmer over at ANR seems to think that Arsene Wenger is in love with the big Brazilian (does this count as bestiality? ok, yuck), and wants him to stay.

Baptista himself has said that he has no clue.

As for Arsenal fans, I don't think any of them want to see any money spent on Baptista, a player who has looked SO inept that some even want to see the prolific Jeremie Aliadiere ahead of him on the team sheet.

I think he might settle in time, and have a lot to offer, but he has looked like a clumsy clown this season, offering up shades of what fans thought of him at Sao Paulo where they laughed at his clumsiness.

I'm here at the Tokyo National Ground (Kokuritsu Kyogi Jo!) for the Club World Cup first semi-final between Al-Ahly of Egypt and Internacional of Brazil. The atmosphere should be great tonight. Against Auckland, the Ahly fans were in good voice, many had travelled, and many Arabs and Africans living in Japan had united to lend support to the African Champions.

As for Internacional, well their fans have travelled in the thousands from Port-Allegre in Brazil for this game. South American football takes the Club World Cup/Toyota Cup very seriously, because for years and years it has been their only chance to disprove the so-called "superiority" of the European teams. The Brazilian press is out here in full force (making life very difficult for us in terms of getting access to the team), and i've been spotting their fans out and about in Tokyo over the last 3 days or so.

Both teams play in red, so i'm looking forward to the Ahly fans and "Torcedor Colorado" (Inter fan collective) really livening up the stadium tonight.

Stay tuned for our coverage. Sadly, now that all the bigwig media persons have shown up (they didn't bother for the "lesser" games, oh no sirree), I have a feeling we have to sit in rubbish seats, and that we aren't even in the press box anymore. What a load of wank! If anything we should be rewarded for getting out that and being enthusiastic for the first two games that others didn't even care enough to show up for.

Oh well.... the squad lists have been handed out, and Alexandre Pato (the "Duck", Brazil's most exciting young player) will be starting, so i'm excited.

On an off day, our bloggers spent some time wandering around Tokyo and taking in the sights.

But our Brazilian blogger Mauricio visited the Internacional training session, and had some time to get comments from the Internacional players and team members. Click here to read them.

And the Inter fans have made up a great song about Fernandao being better than Ronaldinho, so click here to read about it, and hear the song (in Portuguese).