Wenger: My Life and Lessons in Red and White

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As well as this we get his views on what a coach should be. But again there's no personality injected into his words. It comes across so mechanical and impersonal that it was boring to read and made him come across as emotionless robot. Case in point, his wife. She's barely mentioned and at one point he describes their relationship as "friendly". Can't you just feel his love radiating as you read that?

So it’s mixed feelings. Every defeat plays on my mind. And you have to think not what you should have done, but what could you have done? Hostility no, competition yes. It was vital [at Arsenal] that you beat Tottenham for the respect of the club. Competition is important, as long as it’s not crazy. When you [were due to] play Tottenham, at the start of the week everybody was a bit more nervous than usual.

I do hope that history is sympathetic to Wenger. Many of his contemporaries, were not. He was very successful. He did bring great times to the club. He does make contentious claims in his book that the rivalry with the other lot, who play in white and blue does not hold the same 'tensions'. He also claims that it is 'harder to win the Premier League than the Champion's League'. On both points I am not sure. Unfortunately, his own fans that we gooners once were, would, I am sure, argue vociferously that the rivalry will be as fierce and tension filled as always and that if the second point was correct, why did we not win the Champion's League? Being hard on him doesn’t work. Like all artists, he needs to feel supported in his creativity. He has a feel for passing and an exceptional sense of timing when he passes,” he says. “There is something magical and simple about his playing style. The Premier League is a train that goes by at 200 kilometres per hour, and Özil doesn’t always go at this speed, but you always have great affection for his artistry.” His first match was a victory… or was it?

By being transparent. Fifa has to be completely open, their accounts have to be open. Fifa is not owned by the people who lead Fifa, it’s owned by the people who love football. I believe that Fifa needs an education mission and I’m the head of that and we want to reach people all over the world. At the moment, football is well organised in Europe but not in the rest of the world. Everybody in the world deserves a chance in the game and we have to be guided by that at Fifa. In 1996, Wenger, tall, whip-thin, like a sixth-former in a suit, entered the British consciousness when he was announced by Arsenal as the fourth foreign manager in the history of top-division English football (the previous three had not fared well). He held the position for 22 years until 2018, during which time Arsenal won three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups. While his great rival at Manchester United, Alex Ferguson, motivated players with the famed “hairdryer treatment”, Wenger became known for “invisible” training: a holistic approach that went beyond fitness and ball skills and overhauled the lifestyle and nutrition of the squad. Players were given instruction on how to chew their food; the traditional half-time boost of a chocolate bar and fizzy drink was swapped for a sugar lump with caffeine drops on it. Many times I was approached to coach the English national team. I turned it down for two reasons. Because I felt that, first of all, it’s better an English guy does it. And secondly, because I was happy where I was. I was at a club where I loved to do what I did. It’s one example but there were so many. The history of a big club is full of missed great players! I asked my players why we hadn’t won the title,” Wenger writes. “They told me I was putting too much pressure on them, that the goal of winning the Premier League without losing a match seemed unachievable to them.”

Customer reviews

I had the opportunity to get to know you at U efa and F ifa meetings and dinners. With your culture and vision, I believe you have the qualities to be a top exec, such as a CEO or director of football, at a club. Would you have ever considered such a role at Arsenal or was your desire always to remain on the pitch? Whether it is not covered out of an enduring love and loyalty to the club or due to the frequent legal complexities that come with these decisions is ultimately to be seen. He was manager at Arsenal during a time when football changed dramatically. Traditionally the owners of the big clubs tended to be wealthy local businessmen with a love of the game. Gradually foreign investors injected huge amounts of capital into Premiership clubs, American entrepreneurs, Russian oligarchs and wealthy Asians now own England's top football clubs. Wenger commented on the growing number of staff employed by Arsenal who looked after the marketing and branding of the club. This was an interesting aspect of the book.

Instead of detailing his feelings as he goes into key matches he brushes aside huge events in a couple of sentences. Pretty much: “That year we won the double and the following year united won the treble.” Wow, ok thanks for the insight Arsene! I did enjoy it, and there were times (especially at the beginning and end of the book) where he went into more detail, which was a good read, but I wish he had done it more. I’m no wiser as to any specifics of what went on behind the scenes at arsenal in his 22 years there, for instance, nor was there any other real storytelling, insight into the specifics of management, or his side of the story on some of the most famous incidents he was involved in. I can’t help but feel he could’ve let the reader into much more.I must admit, being a closet-fan of the club since 2004, I was drawn to the use of the word 'Unauthorised' in the title. This book would finally answer all that I've wanted to know about the man at the club's helm for over 20 seasons, I assumed. After finishing this book, I was left disappointed. It fails to provide any insight into the life of the man whose leadership has fascinated or frustrated fans in equal measure. It could at best be described as a well-written recap of Wenger's managerial career at Monaco, Japan and of course, Arsenal. Chronologically his career is laid out culminating with Arsenal where he led the team for twenty-two years. The impact of Wenger on Arsenal is immeasurable and probably because of the nature of modern-day football commercialisation, will never be replicated. At Arsenal he had total control, he developed some of the best football players the English Premiership/ Europe ever witnessed, he achieved an unbeaten season with a team of INVINCIBLES - love saying that. He was instrumental in the building of a new stadium and advanced football style, medical treatment and diet to new levels. I loved Arsene Wenger and I remember watching an interview with him many years ago when success was regularly achieved, him saying that he would know when it would be time to leave Arsenal. Unfortunately, what tarnished his reputation was that he did not.

The one that hurts the most and that I’ve never been able to watch again since is the match in the 2006 final against Barça,” he says of the night in Paris, in which Arsenal lost 2-1. “Victory in the Champions League would have been a wonderful end to the adventure of the Invincibles, rewarding all the efforts made by the players and the club during the construction of the new stadium.” He was even more involved in the small details of his previous clubs There are passages of extreme self-examination. He implies that too many things in life became secondary to football, to great personal cost in effect. Do you think your passion for beautiful football made you less successful and are you OK with that? Obviously I'm slightly biased, as a long-suffering Arsenal fan, but this was a great read. It plays out pretty much how you'd expect it to - beginning with his early years in starkly rural Alsace and all the challenges that encompassed, to his position as a player-coach as AS Nancy and Cannes, through his troubled tenure at Monaco, his famous 22-year life at Arsenal and ends on his current position at FIFA.

Therefore, as I am sure you have realised, I have a profound emotional investment in Mr Wenger's autobiography; or certainly a huge part of it. For the very first time, world-renowned and revolutionary football manager Arsène Wenger tells his own story. He opens up about his life, sharing principles for success on and off the field with lessons on leadership, and vivid tales of his 22 years managing Arsenal to unprecedented success.