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Arsenal's players react after the opening goal from FC Porto's Bruno Alves. AP Photo/Paulo Duarte
Coach Arsene Wenger of Arsenal FC is one coach who does not allow the facts to interfere with his conclusions. His mind is made up that he should develop football talents by not going for the big names and not focusing primarily on silverware.
So far, he has not won any silverware in five years, but he is not ready to change his mind or his tactics.
Not even after FC Barcelona outlined the fact that big names are synonymous with silverware in a compelling Champions League ouster of Arsenal FC on a 6-3 aggregate.
Coach Wenger is actually one of the best coaches in the world, but he in the wrong line of work. He should be heading a Football Academy somewhere and developing talents for mega clubs like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Manchester United, AC Milan, Arsenal and the like.
But, perhaps, he has successfully proved that a man can give expression to his passion anywhere – he has turned Arsenal FC into a glorified Football Academy. An Academy which has churned out so many world-class stars and has prepared and lined up many others, like Cesc Febregas, Theo Walcott, Nicklas Bendtner, Samir Nasri, Abou Diaby and Denilson for the world football community.
Thierry Henry was a “subscript” when Wenger brought him to Arsenal FC and there he became a superstar and a superscript.
FC Barcelona came knocking, like the Pied Piper of Hammelin, and Henry was away and gone.
Then there was Emmanuel Adebayor who stepped up from oblivion, at Wenger’s beckoning, to lighten up the Arsenal skies.
But Manchester City snatched him up and he was gone with the wind.
And now poor Wenger is in the fight of his life to hold on to the classic Cesc Febregas as FC Barcelona comes knocking one more time.
Other players that the great Wenger unearthed (while in Monaco FC) include George Weah, who went on to become FIFA World Player of the Year with AC Milan, and Victor Ikpeba, who later became African Player of the Year while in R.F.C de Liege.
At Arsenal FC he discovered relatively unknown footballers like Patrick Vieira, Francesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie and Kolo Toure and turned them into world-class athletes.
That Wenger manages to secure a spot in the Champions League almost every year and makes some reasonable progress in the League is a testimony to his incredible coaching abilities.
With less than five million pounds he assembled a defense which went the length of ten matches in the Champions League of 2005 without conceding a goal, before losing the final to FC Barcelona. But that the team has not won anything in about a decade is proof that experience is still thicker than youth and determination.
But that would not change anything because after five years of not winning anything Wenger is like a gambler who has become used to disappointments and losses. His explanations of losses could put the political establishment to shame.
Summing up the routing of Arsenal by a merciless Messi, he said that Arsenal lost to the best player in the world and the best team in the world.
He forgot to note that the best team in the world was put together by paying cash for quality – not developing talent!
According to Arsenal shot stopper, Manuel Almunia, Arsene Wenger will stay true to his project of youth development despite Arsenal’s mauling at the hands of FC Barcelona.
And adds Wenger, “We’re at a stage where we’re developing players. Theo Walcott, Nicklas Bendtner, Samir Nasri, Abou Diaby and Denilson are 22 or 23. They have shown great qualities and they will get stronger every year. We have to add something, for sure, but we have time to think about that. We were very young and what we did was very positive. We had six or seven players under 23 in the team and we had plenty of opportunities. We showed we lacked maturity in the weight of the final ball.”
A very touching story, but it sounds a little like a wish.
It is Wenger’s wishful conclusion and it does not interfere with the fact that many of the mentioned players may leave “the pseudo Academy” when other clubs come calling with blank cheques.
They may not stay and be developed by Coach Wenger! And what did the wise coach mean by “We are at a stage where we are developing players?”
He has been developing players for over years now and he has not learnt yet that a developed player is a loose cannon which could end up anywhere.
Football is not about developing players, that is a job for football academies. It is about winning silverware.
You cannot send recruits to warfronts without the back up of battle-hardened warriors showing them the way and the skills. But then Wenger is someone who plays the game according to his rules, not the rules of the business.
Another fact Wenger does not care a whistle about is that Arsenal FC has not won any silverware since 2005.
That is just the way a Football Academy, which is allowed to play in the Premier League, would think – because its goal is to develop talents not win trophies. In fact Arsenal’s performance convinces me that if Oxford University were allowed to put its football team in the Premier League, they would do pretty well.
If Arsenal, run with a football academy’s mentality, could do so well, think of what the great Oxford could do?
At least it may not do worse!
Perhaps another coach with a stronger competitive spirit would have been concerned that for the first time in a marvellous career, Lionel Messi, scored four times in one match against his team.
This would have meant that his defence lacked depth and quality and needed experience to cope with the rampaging Messi.
He had scored three hat tricks this year but used Arsenal FC to shoot himself into a quadruple. Not Wenger the nice, good old coach who is developing talents as a top priority and not interested in such talks.
If you know where Wenger is coming from, you would understand the man’s warped psychology. He started his football career playing for FC Duttlenheim before being recruited to the third division club AS Mutzig by Max Hild.
AS Mutzig was known for playing the “best amateur football” in Alsace.
Now you know where his philosophy of having Arsenal FC play the best football even if they do not win trophy come from?
What Wenger loses in not winning silverware, he makes up in transfers.
A 2007 survey proved that he was the only coach to make profit on transfers. In successive years between 2004 and 2009 he averaged a profit of £4.4 million per season on transfers by buying players cheap, developing them and selling them high.
He bought Nicolas Anelka from Paris St. Germain for £500,000 and sold him to Real Madrid two years after for £22.3 million. With this profit he bought Sylvain Wiltord, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires.
Wenger is undeniably the most successful coach in Arsenal FC’s history.
Under him the club has won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups, though its best run in European Football has been the 2005 Final which it lost to FC Barcelona. Wenger is a great coach and his ability to read the game and make tactical changes are legendary.
But all said and done, if Wenger fails to appreciate the fact that football is too serious an affair to be left in the hands of boys, Arsenal FC may wait longer for silverware and he may continue to console himself with his past successes. Unfortunately, the world does not live in the past – this explains why automobile makers give us one reverse gear and five forward gears.
The future, Coach Arsene Wenger, is the message.
Do not rest on your history.
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