All-round entertainer

“My philosophy is to bring people to share something and be happy to do it. To entertain. To be the best of the best. At least that has to be your ambition. That’s part of the love and respect you show the people” – Arsène Wenger, August 2006

How many managers think like this? Did Sir Alex Ferguson talk of love like a hopeless romantic? He did not. But perhaps Arsène Wenger’s very foreignness allowed him to take cultural gambles. He could play an all-foreign team, he could utter unBritish sentences full of sentiment and emotion and still retain his dignity. And dignified he certainly is. He has a lived-in face – lively, but scoured into lines by the multitude of thought processes (90% football) that rage behind his eyes. He is charming, witty, tall, lean, intelligent and with just a touch of your old RE teacher, the one who was always knocking books off his desk. His politeness is exemplary, his strictness demonstrable.

Wenger’s arrival at Arsenal brought a revolution in playing style and an upsurge in trophies won. “We wanted to entertain. We have the responsibility to people who pay £50 or more to watch a game. They deserve to see the best of the best. At least, that has to be your ambition. In 2002 we played the football of dreams. Everybody at his peak. They had the hunger, desire, intelligence to be successful.”

The football Arsenal were producing at the start of the 2002-3 season propelled Wenger into a pronouncement he would not be allowed to forget. He said he thought it was possible for a team to play a whole season undefeated. How people scoffed. And how frustrated he became when the promise was unfulfilled. Years later, he still displays unease at the perceived injustice.

“In some games it was unfair the way we lost. At one we were kicked off the park without the referee interfering at all. I felt that we lost the title in 2003 and justice was not done.”

There was an element of ungraciousness when he maintained that Arsenal were a better team than new champions, Manchester United. When Ferguson claimed the same thing a year later, Wenger replied, “Everyone thinks he has the prettiest wife at home,” a remark that may have bamboozled Sir Alex into thinking Lady Ferguson’s looks had been brought into the argument. It was another of Wenger’s analogies that sometimes flew over the heads of their targets.

But in May 2003, as Arsenal’s form became bogged down, Wenger was nursing a sense of grievance. “Old Vinegar Face,” he was called by Ferguson. “I am not perfect, but I did not think we had been treated fairly by the referees,” Wenger said. “That is why I was not so gracious in defeat. You don’t lie down, you don’t feel sorry for yourself, you come back even stronger.

“This we did the following year, the unbeaten year. That was the biggest year of any English football team ever. To play the whole [league] season unbeaten, people don’t realise what it means. Every Saturday, every Wednesday, playing in the European Cup as well. You go home, you are tired, go to Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester . . . you cannot afford to lose one single game. We came close to losing a few times, but the closest was the first, when we played Manchester United. There was a penalty in the last minute, which was missed.”

This mention might have been mischief on Wenger’s part, the infamous game at Old Trafford resulting in disciplinary procedures against both teams for the overspilling emotion of the occasion and the fact that Arsenal’s celebration of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s penalty miss was considered ungentlemanly.

A 2-0 defeat at Old Trafford in October 2004 halted the unbeaten run at 49 matches and ended the affair with invincibility, but it was magnificent while it lasted – and as a final flourish to 2004-5, Arsenal won the FA Cup (on penalties). United were the beaten finalists.

UNDER Wenger, Arsenal have won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups, but it is a defeat that is often regarded as the climax of his career in England. Looking back to the 2006 Champions League final, which Arsenal lost 2-1 to Barcelona in Paris, he reflected: “It was the miracle of the year. For a long part of the season I had the problem of convincing my players how good they were. Because we lost Patrick Vieira, Sol [Campbell] was injured, Ashley Cole only played seven games, it was very difficult. And yet I felt we were good enough.”

There was also the problem of being short of funds, much of it being ploughed into the Emirates stadium. “Yes, but we anticipated that by bringing in good young players four, five years ago. Fabregas, Van Persie, Reyes and, more lately, Flamini, Eboue, Senderos. Not household names, but I tried to convince my players they can make a name for themselves.

“Real Madrid – the first leg away in the Champions League – was the result that convinced them. Suddenly, everybody looks at you differently. It’s strange that when you feel vulnerable, you are vulnerable. When you feel strong, you are strong. When you see the first 10 minutes, it should have been 3-0 to Arsenal. Henry’s goal was one of his greats. Ronaldo chased back on him, Thierry just shrugged him off.”

Wenger looks distant for a moment, while he replays the goal on the video recorder behind his eyes. “It was one of my greatest nights with Arsenal, because that was what we needed, but nobody expected it against the galacticos. Then we played well against Juventus at Highbury. It was great to see that what we realised against Madrid was not an accident. It was confirmation of our quality.”

The significant moment that many people identified was Vieira, now subdued in his Juve shirt, being hauled to his feet after a collision in the quarter-final first leg with a smiling Cesc Fabregas, his replacement in the Arsenal lineup. Both Wenger prodigies, but only one winner.

Both legs of the semi-final against Villarreal were disappointing. “We looked paralysed,” said Wenger. “No Arsenal team had gone this far before. The fact is, we have reached the Champions League final once in the history of the club. It is difficult to create teams who can do it, but we were 13 minutes from winning in Paris. On the night we just paid for a lack of experience.

If there had been 11 men versus 11 men on the pitch, we had a very good chance to win the game against Barcelona. We were not at all overawed.”

But history records that goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was sent off before the 20th minute and Arsenal had to play three-quarters of the match with 10 men. Wenger lets out a deep breath of regret. “If I was a neutral supporter, I would say no, Lehmann should not have been sent off, and I still feel their first goal was offside. That is a regret, of course. To concede an offside goal when you are 10 v 11 – but that is the price you have to pay for being there. It took me a week to have normal sleep again. You never get completely over it, never forget about it. But you come back to who lives around you and to being a normal human being again.”

Whether his partner, Annie Brosterhous, a former French Olympic basketball player, and their daughter, born in 1997, feel he has ever been a “normal human being”, with his well-publicised passion for football video-viewing day and night, is open to interpretation. But at least he never kicks the cat. “No, because we have no cat,” he said. “But you think about a defeat like that, how you could have done differently.” It is, definitely, haunting. At the end of the match some of his comments were deemed ungracious. It was probably no more than disgust at losing and the inability, in the furnace of the moment, to disguise it. “I did not feel ungracious. I said nothing against Barcelona. They played well without being exceptional. But if you mean that I was upset to concede an offside goal, I prefer to be ungracious.” He smiled.

He mellowed a little at the World Cup that followed in Germany. “I realised how popular Arsenal players had become all over the world. People from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, everywhere, came up to congratulate the players.” This worldwide appreciation society would prove handy for recruiting players: “Everybody dreams to be Thierry Henry.”

In one vital sense, Wenger’s dreams came true regarding the French striker. After a season of speculation, Henry decided to stay with Arsenal immediately after losing the Champions League final, despite the obvious lures of Barcelona. One of the ways Wenger persuaded Henry to remain with Arsenal – albeit for just one more season – was his ability to make individuals feel special. Of Vieira, he once said: “We want him to be forever at Arsenal.” Of Bergkamp: “A player who gets close to perfection.” Of Henry: “You could say we play for him in a way.” Yet he is also the manager who insists on the organic whole of the team. “What you have to get out of every player is a servant for the team’s vision and goals.”

BUT HENRY is gone, and Arsenal have a new home. How much have things changed? “I fell in love with Highbury more than I ever imagined,” said Wenger. “There was a soul in that place you could never forget. There was something there that made it magic. As proud as I am of the Emirates, I loved Highbury as much. There was something there that made you feel like family. You were close to everybody. The pitch was small. Not one stand looked exactly like another one. You feel the whole history of the club is in there.”

His greatest Highbury moment? “The first title against Everton, when we won 4-0 in 1998. Tony Adams scored a goal, one becoming of Franz Beckenbauer. That was great because it showed I could win in England. It was a great day. When you win a championship it is not always programmed to be 4-0 at home on such a nice spring day. If you had made a film, you could not have organised it in a better way. It was magnificent. It became very emotional. Then you control yourself again.

“But the last day at Highbury was exceptional as well. We needed Spurs to lose and us to win. Yet before half-time we were 2-1 down to Wigan. I don’t remember what I said in the dressing room – something like, ‘Give absolutely everything in the second half. Go out here, at this stadium, win this game. There is no other possible way than slaughtering Wigan in the second half’. It was fantastic in the end. Spurs lost to West Ham, we secured a Champions League place for the future of the club and we moved to the Emirates on a positive note.”

And the worst Highbury moment? “The defeat by Chelsea in the last minute of the [2003-4] Champions League quarter-final. We didn’t get so far for years and that last-minute goal was like a knife.”

Wenger is accused in some quarters of an antiEnglish bias, despite living happily in England since 1996. “I can prove this is not true by the fact that we are scouting everywhere and we get more positive reports from abroad than England. The relation between price and quality is better abroad and we had limited finances in the years leading up to the Emirates.”

Arsenal’s training ground chef observed that some players had never seen, never tasted, a variety of vegetables. “It’s true,” said Wenger. “Some come from quite poor backgrounds, so they do not get the best food always. I was lucky in the village where I grew up. We had our own garden with home-grown potatoes and tomatoes. We were organic before the word was invented. But I like England. I have a very strong Anglo-Saxon side. The English, like me, have a lot of contradictions. They are very positive people. They are private, restricted with their feelings, but like to invade other people’s privacy. I don’t watch Big Brother. It is the wrong side of modern society, that people who do nothing become quickly famous with no merit other than sitting in front of the camera. I don’t like that fake side. To become a great footballer you need motivation, dedication, talent, and yet just being in front of a camera makes you considered successful. What is terrible is the polls of the under16s who say what they want to be is ‘famous’ – not to be a good singer, or footballer or veterinary student, they just want to be famous. What kind of target is that in life?”

Wenger will never retire from football. “There is no other way but to remain in football. It is not part of your life. It is your life. It’s terrible to lose your passion. For players, they lose their passion, fame and income at the same time. The money is not a problem for players any more. Now they only lose the other two. If you no longer have a target in life, it can be very boring. There is nothing more terrible than remorse.”

Wenger, one would imagine, has no remorse whatever for time misspent. “I always think I could have done better. But I could have done much worse as well.”

Finally: has he ever eaten a chip? He looks nonplussed. “What is that?” A french fry. “Yes, of course, I love it,” he replied, debunking the myth that the revolution he wrought in the eating habits of English football was something he religiously adopted himself. “I come from Alsace, where we produce potatoes. I eat potatoes. But I restrict myself. Like all things you forbid. Once, from time to time, you have to do it.”

He looks mischievous. “That is my contradiction.”

The Arsenal Opus

- This exclusive Arsène Wenger interview is an extract from the Arsenal Opus, published this week by Kraken Sport & Media. It has also published a similar tome on American football’s Super Bowl and Manchester United. Taking more than two years to produce, its 850 pages contain more than 400,000 words detailing the story of the historic club and exclusive interviews with the players and personalities who have defi ned it, written by leading sports journalists n The Opus, which measures half a metre square and weighs in at 37kg, boasts more than 2,000 photographs. It is a limited edition with a print run of just 1,500 and retails for £3,000. Each copy is signed by Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager. In addition, 500 copies of the Icons edition are available for £4,250 each. Copies of the Icons edition are additionally signed by various legendary Arsenal players including Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp and Charlie George among others. For further information visit www.krakenopus.com

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