C’est Fini.
This was not a night for fairy tales. When Arsene Wenger eventually sits back with a large glass of Chateau Lafleur Pomerol, perhaps Edith Piaf will be his musical accompaniment of choice. For he is the stubborn philosopher who does not regret anything and as the song says, ‘for all the good that was done to me nor the evil, all that I care, its paid, swept forgotten, I do not care about the past’. The irony is, no matter whether he regrets or not, the tie against Atletico Madrid was the final indignity, as the opposition were the embodiment of what Arsenal should have looked like upon Arsene’s departure.
To analyse this game is futile, yet it will be done because it must be done. When reading in the many papers about the missed chances and stubborn defending one thing is clear. The teams are man for man fairly equal, for every Mesut Ozil there is an Antione Griezmann, for every Alexandre Lacazette there is a Jan Oblak and so on. The difference was glaring however, attitude, application and belief seem easy terms to throw at footballers but as is in most professions, improvements are made in people when you look at their environment, their motivations and their approach. Here, in Madrid there was a case study for the ‘child with no structure versus the disciplined one with’. That night as in most cases, the child with freedom within boundaries excelled over what has turned out to be a free spirited but ultimately lazy youngster.
Arsene has, will and is, criticised for creating this environment but in his defence, it is a result of his past brilliance. For years he coached and pushed his players ‘in his own way’ creating team after team that played with what became known as the Arsenal style. This culminated with the ‘Invincibles’ a team that you didn’t need to coach. This was the ultimate version of footballing poetry, it harnessed the most beautiful aspects of football and what’s more it could adapt on the field, morphing of its own accord into an equally dangerous version of itself. For Arsene Wenger this was like asking Siri to ‘write like Dante’ and it would.
#ATLvAFC
This whilst signalling the greatest moment in the history of Arsene’s tenure also signalled the end. The new money in the league, the new stadium pressures and the exalted status it gave the Frenchman all lead to a toxic mix that would one day end in infamy in the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano. The problem was that as his invincible team broke up the aforementioned pressures meant that he now had to look for young talented players, he found them but here began the errors. Unlike players such as Dennis Bergkamp, youngsters such as Cesc Fabregas needed coaching, Wenger instead simply trusted them and allowed them to express themselves. Fabregas was one of the success stories, but could he have been better? Denilson certainly could.
Another coach who has also had to be frugal due to a lesser budget than his competitors and a new stadium being built is Diego Simeone. It seemed fitting that in what was the last gasp breaths of Wenger’s dynasty at Arsenal he would face such a coach. Simeone has produced a unit of troops, so well drilled that Napoleon would have been proud and over the two legs he proved that methodical reputation on defensive duties still pays dividends, especially when you are competing against teams who can spend their way out of trouble. So, in the Wanda Metropolitano, a stadium that ironically looks like the Emirates stadium, Wenger was beaten by a team that embodied what Arsenal should be. This does not necessarily mean in style but in ethos, simply that to compete with your peers you must utilise the sum of your parts to its maximum potential and this is, unfortunately, Wenger’s failure.
The final home game with Burnley will surely be a passionate au revoir and the final game against Huddersfield is fitting due to the strong links to Herbert Chapman but it isn’t perfect. There will be no French finish in Lyon against Marseille for Arsene, there will be no fairy tale. Arsene now goes into the distance with the words of Edith Piaf, “With my memories I lit the fire, my sorrows my pleasure, I do not need them anymore, swept the loves with their tremolos, swept forever, I’m starting from scratch”.
