Wenger: The Making of a Legend

by Jasper Rees

Arsène Wenger has made a science of football management and turned his players into artists. A surprise appointment at Arsenal FC when he arrived in 1996 and now the most established manager in English football, Wenger managed to convert a sceptical, entrenched footballing culture to his modern way of thinking. In this newly updated biography, Jesper Rees uncovers the true story behind this deeply private man, having been granted unprecedented access to Wenger’s friends and family, players and rivals. Rees shows how Wenger’s revolutionary ideas on psychology, diet and fitness were shaped by his own experience � from childhood in Alsace, to his days as a player and coach in France and Japan. Wenger has survived smears and scandal, taken his club to a new stadium and transformed Arsenal into a European powerhouse, all the while sticking to his principles of nurturing youth and raising the �beautiful game” to previously unimagined heights.

Genres: Nonfiction, Football, Biography

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 7, 2003

Reviews

[Albert Gubler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wenger: The Legend is an interesting look at the manager of my favorite football team, Arsenal London.

Unfortunately, it suffers from the big problem most biographies of living people face: the story hasn't ended yet. The book was originally published in 2003, right before Mr. Wenger hit the height of his wildly successful career by winning the Premier League unbeaten. He followed that period of sustained success by not winning a trophy in 10 years. And sadly for the book, the books ends again one year before he finally got rid of the monkey on his back and before the win of the FA cup in 2014.

Mr. Rees writes fluidly and offers some great insight in to the thinking of Mr. Wenger, but I would loved to see an even more in-depth analysis of his methods and ideas. He glosses over some of them and repeats himself a lot. However, the book is interesting for anyone wanting to see how the longest-serving manager in English football started out and what some of the Arsenal legends have to say about it. My favorite part of the book was the look at the rivalry between Mr. Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, which had been fantastic around the turn of century, but unfortunately petered off as Arsenal became less of a threat to United (and were replaced by Chelsea and City as the second force in the country).

I'll probably read the biography of Guardiola next, which supposedly contains more analysis of his footballing ideas.

[Aizat Yasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the future: "I am in a job where you always look in front of you. Unfortunately, the older you get, the less distance there is in front of you.”

Arsene Wenger