Good read this...
Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry. Jean-Paul Sartre
If, as we are often told, football is poetry, there is one club who have embodied that ideal, taken it farther, elaborated it more powerfully, than any other. They are a team who have had their fair share of success, but wanted more; who have won silverware, but not quite as prolifically as their fiercest rivals; who have reached for the loftiest ideals and often attained them, but more frequently have fallen agonisingly short.
They are a club personified by one man, perhaps the most intricate and enigmatic presence in English football. A man admired by countless fans for his resolute pursuit of the artistic, but whose deeper nature has always been swathed in mystery.
“Arsène Who?” was the headline-writer’s quip when the man from Alsace arrived in North London and, in a curious way — 13 years and three Premier League titles later — the question retains its resonance.
Just who is Arsène Wenger? What lies beneath?
It is a warm summer afternoon in Central London and Wenger is seated before a packed press gathering in a small room at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Alongside him on the podium is Jake Peach, a 12-year-old Arsenal supporter who has battled leukaemia, and the actress, Barbara Windsor. Wenger is there, along with three of his players, to announce Arsenal’s latest charity appeal. The club aim to raise £500,000 for the children’s hospital.
After the speeches, Wenger presents Windsor with an Arsenal shirt and is ever-so-slightly abashed when she responds with a gushing hug. The Frenchman smiles shyly, but with warmth, his face creasing into a thousand lines. He then takes questions from the assembled football writers, his wit evident in every answer. He seems to be enjoying the verbal sparring after the summer lull, flashing a smile whenever the questioning gets tough.
But it is only when we repair to an anteroom for an in-depth interview that one is exposed to the full voltage of Wenger’s charisma.
He starts slowly, picking his way through questions on politics, the arts, globalisation and culture. He is reasoned, well-read and imbued with deep moral seriousness. Then the conversation turns to football and it is as if a switch has flicked in his soul; as if a lightning bolt has surged through his body.
The question raised is: “Is football art?” Wenger’s eyes flash as he warms to the theme. “I believe that anything in life, if it is really well done, becomes art,” he says. “If you read a great writer, he touches deep inside and helps you to discover something about life.
“Life is important on a daily basis because you transform it — you try to transform it — into something that is close to art. And football is like that. When I see Barcelona, to me it is art.”
But is there sometimes a conflict between aesthetics and success? Are there times when Arsenal have created great art on the pitch but at the expense of results? “I agree with you,” Wenger says, “but at the end of the day, I ask you: who is the most successful team in the world? Brazil. What do they play? Good football. Who won everything last year? Barcelona. What do they play? Lovely football.
“I am not against being pragmatic because to be pragmatic is to make a good pass, not a bad pass. It is as simple as that.”
Does Wenger’s pragmatism extend to pretending that he has not seen gratuitous fouls by his own players? His answer is as direct as it is honest. “Sometimes I see it but I say that I didn’t see it to protect the players and because I could not find any rational explanation for what they did,” he admits.
As the conversation progresses, it is Wenger’s obsessiveness that comes to dominate. The Frenchman never switches off, living like an ascetic in pursuit of an epiphany.
“I believe that you have to put everything on your side to be competitive,” he says. “As a manager, you have to live like a player. The time when you could go out on the booze and have drinks is over. You cannot afford one or two days when you are not totally focused.”
But that is a long time to live like a player. Wouldn’t he rather live a life in which he is not constantly having to worry about whether he has had one glass of wine too many? “Let’s say that for every passion you have a great price to pay,” he says. “And I say to the players, when you are hungry it’s only a part of your body that is telling you that you are hungry. But when you are hungry for success, it is the whole person that organises life around that success. It is not a single part of your body that tells you on Saturday afternoon: ‘Let’s go and win that game’.
“No, there is something in the structure of your personality that tells you that this is vital and is worth organising your whole life around. This is the core of your life.
“Sure, I do a lot of things that I do not like to do. I would prefer sometimes to go out and enjoy myself, but then I think that it might make me less competitive, and I don’t do it.”
I have come face to face with devoted sportsmen and managers before, but never quite like this; certainly none who have articulated their obsession with such disconcerting candour. I ask if he ever finds time to switch off, to find a world away from football?
“No,” he says simply. “When you are 30 years in this job you have to be, somehow, crazy, because you cannot say it has not had a psychological impact. You live it, you think it; it is impossible to escape.” So there is madness in your obsession? “Yes”.
Does he ever wish he could be free of this obsession? Does his wife, or daughter, ever say: “Arsène, I wish you would just chill out?” “The most important thing in life is to have a target and to go for it,” he says. “The worst is to have no target. Imagine you get up in the morning and you do nothing. You enjoy one minute. Then there is another minute. But what do you do next? Can you dedicate your whole life to this? Somewhere within us is the desire to feel that we are useful and that we have some quality.
“Sir Bobby Robson just died. Did you see the last game he watched? Just a charity game, but still he had that spark in his eye. He could have sat at home, yet he chose to go there. He had two, three days to live and that is where he wanted to be. Yet what would he have done at home — sat there and thought about dying, maybe terrified? The way to get through was to enjoy his passion.”
Wenger’s honesty is as unquenchable as it is beguiling. He lives for football — football expressed as art. His love of winning and his love of the aesthetic are part of the same, interlocking obsession, one that has defined his existence and will continue to define it.
Football, to Wenger, is as serious as life itself. As Sartre once said: “What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life. The adventure of living, hurtling toward death.”
“I cannot for ever be at the top as a manager because you need physical strength, some bestial strength to do this job,” Wenger says. “You need that to fight and to win. That goes slowly throughout your life, but you compensate with experience, you anticipate problems, you understand more, you are more comprehensive with players.”
I ask Wenger if he fears life after football. His sharp, quizzical eyes look back, unblinking and unyielding. “Of course,” he says.
Wenger on . . .
Politics: I could have gone into politics, yes. There are parallels. The value of experience is that you can better dominate your nature and, on television, the politician who loses the debate is the one who gets nervous. As soon as you become aggressive on television you have lost. It is a basic rule.
Sir Alex Ferguson: It is now a respectful relationship. That was not always the case, but it has become much better. Maybe this is because we are no longer challenging them for major titles.
The Emirates: It’s not easy to build a new stadium and remain at the level where you are. Look at all the clubs that have built new stadiums. Leicester, Southampton, Coventry, Derby — they have all gone down.
Movies: I have seen many, mostly from the 1970s, Fellini, Fassbinder, that period. The last one I really liked was The Deer Hunter. It is a classic. But in the last ten years I have not seen many movies. I have not had time.
The Arts: I am into abstraction. ... and intelligent life in football:
Music: I love Deerhoof. Intelligent music, ****ing crazy also.
The common denominator of successful teams is that the players are intelligent. That does not always mean educated. They can analyse a problem and find a solution. The common denominator of a top-level person is that they can objectively assess their performance. You speak to a player after the game and ask him to rate his performance and if he analyses well, you know he is the sort who will drive home thinking, "I did this wrong, I did that wrong". His assessment will be correct and, next time, he will rectify it. That player has a chance. The one who has a crap game and says he was fantastic, you worry for him. This is also true in life beyond football.
If, as we are often told, football is poetry, there is one club who have embodied that ideal, taken it farther, elaborated it more powerfully, than any other. They are a team who have had their fair share of success, but wanted more; who have won silverware, but not quite as prolifically as their fiercest rivals; who have reached for the loftiest ideals and often attained them, but more frequently have fallen agonisingly short.
They are a club personified by one man, perhaps the most intricate and enigmatic presence in English football. A man admired by countless fans for his resolute pursuit of the artistic, but whose deeper nature has always been swathed in mystery.
“Arsène Who?” was the headline-writer’s quip when the man from Alsace arrived in North London and, in a curious way — 13 years and three Premier League titles later — the question retains its resonance.
Just who is Arsène Wenger? What lies beneath?
It is a warm summer afternoon in Central London and Wenger is seated before a packed press gathering in a small room at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Alongside him on the podium is Jake Peach, a 12-year-old Arsenal supporter who has battled leukaemia, and the actress, Barbara Windsor. Wenger is there, along with three of his players, to announce Arsenal’s latest charity appeal. The club aim to raise £500,000 for the children’s hospital.
After the speeches, Wenger presents Windsor with an Arsenal shirt and is ever-so-slightly abashed when she responds with a gushing hug. The Frenchman smiles shyly, but with warmth, his face creasing into a thousand lines. He then takes questions from the assembled football writers, his wit evident in every answer. He seems to be enjoying the verbal sparring after the summer lull, flashing a smile whenever the questioning gets tough.
But it is only when we repair to an anteroom for an in-depth interview that one is exposed to the full voltage of Wenger’s charisma.
He starts slowly, picking his way through questions on politics, the arts, globalisation and culture. He is reasoned, well-read and imbued with deep moral seriousness. Then the conversation turns to football and it is as if a switch has flicked in his soul; as if a lightning bolt has surged through his body.
The question raised is: “Is football art?” Wenger’s eyes flash as he warms to the theme. “I believe that anything in life, if it is really well done, becomes art,” he says. “If you read a great writer, he touches deep inside and helps you to discover something about life.
“Life is important on a daily basis because you transform it — you try to transform it — into something that is close to art. And football is like that. When I see Barcelona, to me it is art.”
But is there sometimes a conflict between aesthetics and success? Are there times when Arsenal have created great art on the pitch but at the expense of results? “I agree with you,” Wenger says, “but at the end of the day, I ask you: who is the most successful team in the world? Brazil. What do they play? Good football. Who won everything last year? Barcelona. What do they play? Lovely football.
“I am not against being pragmatic because to be pragmatic is to make a good pass, not a bad pass. It is as simple as that.”
Does Wenger’s pragmatism extend to pretending that he has not seen gratuitous fouls by his own players? His answer is as direct as it is honest. “Sometimes I see it but I say that I didn’t see it to protect the players and because I could not find any rational explanation for what they did,” he admits.
As the conversation progresses, it is Wenger’s obsessiveness that comes to dominate. The Frenchman never switches off, living like an ascetic in pursuit of an epiphany.
“I believe that you have to put everything on your side to be competitive,” he says. “As a manager, you have to live like a player. The time when you could go out on the booze and have drinks is over. You cannot afford one or two days when you are not totally focused.”
But that is a long time to live like a player. Wouldn’t he rather live a life in which he is not constantly having to worry about whether he has had one glass of wine too many? “Let’s say that for every passion you have a great price to pay,” he says. “And I say to the players, when you are hungry it’s only a part of your body that is telling you that you are hungry. But when you are hungry for success, it is the whole person that organises life around that success. It is not a single part of your body that tells you on Saturday afternoon: ‘Let’s go and win that game’.
“No, there is something in the structure of your personality that tells you that this is vital and is worth organising your whole life around. This is the core of your life.
“Sure, I do a lot of things that I do not like to do. I would prefer sometimes to go out and enjoy myself, but then I think that it might make me less competitive, and I don’t do it.”
I have come face to face with devoted sportsmen and managers before, but never quite like this; certainly none who have articulated their obsession with such disconcerting candour. I ask if he ever finds time to switch off, to find a world away from football?
“No,” he says simply. “When you are 30 years in this job you have to be, somehow, crazy, because you cannot say it has not had a psychological impact. You live it, you think it; it is impossible to escape.” So there is madness in your obsession? “Yes”.
Does he ever wish he could be free of this obsession? Does his wife, or daughter, ever say: “Arsène, I wish you would just chill out?” “The most important thing in life is to have a target and to go for it,” he says. “The worst is to have no target. Imagine you get up in the morning and you do nothing. You enjoy one minute. Then there is another minute. But what do you do next? Can you dedicate your whole life to this? Somewhere within us is the desire to feel that we are useful and that we have some quality.
“Sir Bobby Robson just died. Did you see the last game he watched? Just a charity game, but still he had that spark in his eye. He could have sat at home, yet he chose to go there. He had two, three days to live and that is where he wanted to be. Yet what would he have done at home — sat there and thought about dying, maybe terrified? The way to get through was to enjoy his passion.”
Wenger’s honesty is as unquenchable as it is beguiling. He lives for football — football expressed as art. His love of winning and his love of the aesthetic are part of the same, interlocking obsession, one that has defined his existence and will continue to define it.
Football, to Wenger, is as serious as life itself. As Sartre once said: “What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life. The adventure of living, hurtling toward death.”
“I cannot for ever be at the top as a manager because you need physical strength, some bestial strength to do this job,” Wenger says. “You need that to fight and to win. That goes slowly throughout your life, but you compensate with experience, you anticipate problems, you understand more, you are more comprehensive with players.”
I ask Wenger if he fears life after football. His sharp, quizzical eyes look back, unblinking and unyielding. “Of course,” he says.
Wenger on . . .
Politics: I could have gone into politics, yes. There are parallels. The value of experience is that you can better dominate your nature and, on television, the politician who loses the debate is the one who gets nervous. As soon as you become aggressive on television you have lost. It is a basic rule.
Sir Alex Ferguson: It is now a respectful relationship. That was not always the case, but it has become much better. Maybe this is because we are no longer challenging them for major titles.
The Emirates: It’s not easy to build a new stadium and remain at the level where you are. Look at all the clubs that have built new stadiums. Leicester, Southampton, Coventry, Derby — they have all gone down.
Movies: I have seen many, mostly from the 1970s, Fellini, Fassbinder, that period. The last one I really liked was The Deer Hunter. It is a classic. But in the last ten years I have not seen many movies. I have not had time.
The Arts: I am into abstraction. ... and intelligent life in football:
Music: I love Deerhoof. Intelligent music, ****ing crazy also.
The common denominator of successful teams is that the players are intelligent. That does not always mean educated. They can analyse a problem and find a solution. The common denominator of a top-level person is that they can objectively assess their performance. You speak to a player after the game and ask him to rate his performance and if he analyses well, you know he is the sort who will drive home thinking, "I did this wrong, I did that wrong". His assessment will be correct and, next time, he will rectify it. That player has a chance. The one who has a crap game and says he was fantastic, you worry for him. This is also true in life beyond football.
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