Arsene Wenger
Arsene Wenger
Arsène Wenger, OBEɛʁ]; born 22 October 1949), is a French football manager and former player. He has been the manager of Arsenal since 1996, where he has since become the club's longest-serving manager and most successful in terms of major titles won. Football pundits give Wenger credit for his contribution to the revolutionising of football in England in the late 1990s through the introduction of changes in the training and diet of players...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth22 October 1949
CityStrasbourg, France
CountryFrance
One of the things I discovered in Japan was from watching sumo wrestling. At the end you can never tell who has won the fight, and who has lost, because they do not show their emotion because it could embarrass the loser. It is unbelievable. That is why I try to teach my team politeness. It is only here in England that everybody pokes their tongue out when they win.
The score is high and very brutal but does not reflect what we saw on the pitch. The first shot on goal was a goal. The second was an own goal. The third was straight after half-time. They defend like mad and they catch us on the break.
The communist model does not work economically, we all realised that, but the capitalist model in the modern world also looks to be unsustainable.
Of course, we also have the responsibility to win games and the difficulty in the job is to combine both.
A company works best when everybody does the job he is paid to do.
It's a strange atmosphere always over there, it is darker and less glamorous, and you don't feel as high. It is a different kind of test - can you raise your level in a less exciting environment and perhaps still a very difficult one?
What motivates me is an ideal of thinking about how football should be. And to try to get near this way of playing. And to try to improve all aspects of my personality that can help me get near this ideal way of playing football.
As a coach you can influence the diet of your players. You can point out what is wrong.
I take pride in the fact that people go home having felt that for 90 minutes today, life is beautiful - and that's it, basically. That's why professional football exists.
If I go into a season and I say, 'For f***'s sake, if we don't win anything, they will all leave,' I have already lost. The problem of the media is always to imagine the worst. The problem of the manager is always to imagine the best.
When you represent a club it's about values and qualities, not about passports.
The real revelation of a player's character is not in his social life but in how he plays. In my social life I can hide my real personality.
At a young age winning is not the most important thing... the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.
Any man who concentrates his energies totally on one passion is, by definition, someone who hurts the people close to him.