The famous Frenchman of English soccer
After 22 years of ‘unparalleled class,’ Arsene Wenger steps down as Arsenal manager
It was a puzzling hire, at least at first.
“I thought: ‘What does this Frenchman know about football? He wears glasses and looks more like a schoolteacher,’” Arsenal stalwart Tony Adams recalled thinking upon hearing the news that the Gunners had hired Arsene Wenger as their manager in 1996. “‘Does he even speak English properly?’”
One London newspaper was more succinct: “Arsene who?” read the headline.
The question was quickly answered.
In just his second season, Arsenal would win the English football double — the Premier League crown and the FA Cup tournament title — for the first time since 1971, a feat that would be repeated four years later. Then, in 2003-04, Wenger orchestrated perhaps the greatest season in modern English soccer history: “The Invincibles” finished with 26 wins, 12 draws and zero losses, the first unbeaten league season since the sport’s infancy.
There would be more championships, as Arsenal would go on to win four more FA Cups to give Wenger a record seven such crowns, but success in both the Premier League and in European competitions proved elusive and discontent set in among some of the team’s supporters.
The clamour for change finally won out, and on Friday the 68year-old Wenger announced he will be stepping down at the end of the season after 22 seasons.
“After careful consideration and following discussions with the club, I feel it is the right time for me to step down at the end of the season,” he said in a teamissued statement. “I am grateful for having had the privilege to serve the club for so many memorable years.”
Said Stan Kroenke, Arsenal’s American owner: “Arsene has unparalleled class and we will always be grateful to him. Everyone who loves Arsenal and everyone who loves football owes him a debt of gratitude.”
Wenger is credited with shepherding Arsenal into soccer’s modern European era, cracking down on the team’s notorious drinking, overhauling his players’ diets and instituting new training methods. Given unprecedented control over the team’s personnel (at least as far as Arsenal was concerned), he cast aside the team’s British provincialism raided the French league for players such as Nicolas Anelka, Emmanuel Petit and Theirry Henry and brought Marc Overmars over from Ajax, the Dutch power.
But after beating Manchester United for the FA Cup title in 2005, Arsenal wouldn’t win another title for nine years as the financial burden of building a new stadium negatively affected Wenger’s chances of building a successful roster.
The team eventually started spending on players again but success apart from the FA Cup proved elusive. A regular in the top four of the Premier League standings, Arsenal was a usual qualifier for but rarely a true competitor in the Champions League, Europe’s club championship: Apart from a runner-up finish in 2006 and a semifinal appearance in 2009, the Gunners never made it past the quarterfinals over Wenger’s tenure.
Their last seven appearances ended in the round of 16 and the nadir came last season, when Arsenal’s fifth-place Premier League finish guaranteed them a spot only in the second-rate Europa League.
That’s where Wenger perhaps will end his career, should Arsenal win its two-leg semifinal against Atletico Madrid and advance to the final on May 16, three days after his final Premier League game against Huddersfield.
It wouldn’t be the top prize, but it would be another trophy nonetheless. The Frenchman knows a little something about that.