Wenger Opens Up

By: Martin | August 14th, 2009

Arsene Wenger recently sat down with a journalist to do an unusually honest and revealing interview. The whole thing is here, but here are the main highlights for me:

–He believes that a unified world government is necessary and unavoidable, and will happen within the next 50 years or so. Ummm…I’m just going to let that one alone.

–He believes Arsenal, by operating within their means and not spending more than we bring in in income, is doing things the right way, but that he is not jealous of Chelsea or Manchester City.

–He defends his policy of letting young players develop into their roles by saying bringing in experienced talent would frequently block younger talent. He uses the example of Jack Wilshere, saying that if he brings in someone this year, they would help us win, but by this time next year, when Wilshere is ready to make the leap up to the first team and regular action, he would be blocked, become dissatisfied, and want to leave the club. I don’t know about this, actually–it seems like there are plenty of clubs like ManU who balance experienced talent with bringing youngsters along.

–He thinks Arsenal will win the title this year.

–He said he turned down Real Madrid because it would have been a betrayal of his principles, and he wants to finish the job he has started at Arsenal.

–He refutes the knowledge that if Arsenal had a little bit more steel and grit they would win more–he points to Brazil as the # 1 ranked national team in the world, and Barcelona as the # 1 club team in the world, as evidence that attractive, exciting football is very often successful football.

–In possibly the most fascinating part of the interview, he talks about how focused he is, and while it’s hard to summarize, he really kind of comes across as a football ascetic. He says he essentially watches football all the time, does not drink because he feels it would distract from his focus, and admits that he is a “robot” in his slavishness to his routine. He admits that he sometimes questions whether it’s healthy for him to be so obsessed.

–He also says he learned about “politeness” from his time in Japan, and says that he learned from Japanese sumo matches, where afterwards it was impossible to tell who had won and who had lost, how to act in victory and defeat. He claims he tries to always keep his emotions inside and maintain a constant exterior, although he acknowledges that this is probably not healthy.

–In the sound bite that’s getting the most play for the media, he admits that oftentimes when he has claimed he did not see an Arsenal foul, that he was lying, but didn’t want to address it out of protection for his players.

It’s worth reading for yourself. I honestly don’t remember reading such a revealing interview in the past, because I think this gives you a pretty good view of Wenger as a man and a manager. Today’s a busy day on the site–we’ll have the conclusion of our season preview stuff today, and then an Everton preview either later this afternoon or evening.