It was 20 years ago when a bespectacled Frenchman announced himself as the manager of Arsenal.
A man of unknown quantity, arriving in a country that no foreign manager had succeeded at that point, generated a lot of doubt and skepticism, and of course, the ‘Geography teacher’ comparison.
However, his appointment turned out to be a turning point in the history of the football club, and few would have imagined Arsene Wenger to be managing Arsenal 20 years on.
Wenger was an innovator. He sought to retain the steel of the team that he inherited, but combine it with flair, speed and power.
Changing the diets of the players, as well as altering their knowledge of sports physiology and science, he fused it with his experience in Japan of the culture there which he admired so much, and vastly changed the landscape of English football.
Such was the concoction of raw pace, power and style of his teams, that he admits is one of his proudest moments, to have people around the world recognise ‘The Arsenal Way’, that blew teams apart, earning him the double in his first full season in charge.
Arsenal probably should have won more in the years leading up to the 2002 double, but few could have questioned the way they did it. Winning the league at Old Trafford, fans just knew that this guy was special. They could feel it, the players could feel it, Wenger was simply incredible.
Then Wenger flirted with the idea of invincibility, and in 1996, he was ridiculed. However, his team went on to achieve one of football’s greatest ever feats, going through an entire season unbeaten. It was a truly sensational team. Thierry Henry. Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires. Four world-class players who dazzled and mesmerised every week under the tutelage of the Professor. Wenger had done it. He had proved the doubters wrong, and etched himself into folklore.
The schism between Arsenal fans would surely be that turning point in 2006, when Arsenal moved away from their sanctuary Highbury, to the Emirates, a move Wenger deemed necessary in order for the team to compete with the best, and to have sustainable success.
Being cash-strapped, Wenger did extraordinarily well to keep the team in the top four and Champions League every year, a remarkable feat that not everybody seems to acknowledge. It was tough for Arsenal to compete with the likes of Man United, Chelsea and Man City, who had unlimited financial power. It’s easy now in hindsight to appreciate such a feat, given how Chelsea and Man United have invested an exorbitant amount of money and failed to qualify for the Champions League recently.
But that night in Paris would surely have haunted Wenger. Losing the final with 10 minutes to spare, as Wenger admitted as ‘one of the biggest regrets’, and till this day, it still haunts him. Arsenal missed a plethora of opportunities to seal the game, and win what would have been the first major European trophy in the club’s history.
But Wenger is no saint. He makes questionable, frustrating, and inexplicable decisions. He tears our minds apart sometimes, with the things he says and does. However, that is exactly what is endearing about Wenger, he is a man of fault, lest we think that he was infallible, delighting and spoiling us with years and years of drunken success.
Wenger feels, he loves this club more than we think. Building a stadium was a huge move for the club, but which manager would have done that if not for the future of the club? Not anyone would tell you that Jose Mourinho or Alex Ferguson would have done the same. Wenger could have been selfish and chosen to remain at Highbury to win further honours. To trade that by establishing a new home, reaping in greater financial rewards to have a sustainable future, is priceless. To weather a decade of nothingness, was painful, but it was necessary, and Wenger saw that quicker than any of us did.
He is the last of his kind. No one will ever replicate his tenure in modern football ever. An intelligent innovator, a wonderful philosopher, an incredible manager and quite simply, a genius.
20 years of Wenger has treated us Arsenal fans to some eye-opening brand of football, some incredible periods of success, and also periods of frustration but those incredible 20 years, perhaps shaped what you know of Arsenal, and what you know of football, and made you fall in love with the Arsenal.
He probably would be too modest to admit it, but that man who walked into a room of uncertainty in 1996 transformed football.
Thank you Arsene.
