Mister Legend

Chapter 428 Resignation and the Future

Since the 2005-06 season, when they lost to the then European king Barcelona in the Champions League final, Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, ​​Pires and other stars who had helped the team create countless glory have left one after another. Strictly speaking, Arsenal is no longer a giant team.

Whether it is their record or their attractiveness to the stars, they have been left far behind by many teams.Every year, he is dubbed the "Fighting Four" by the fans. After reluctantly participating in the Champions League, he stopped outside the quarter-finals again and again, and successfully took over the title of "Dream Eight" from Real Madrid ten years ago.

However, when Manchester City and Chelsea are still stable, Manchester United and Liverpool are gradually recovering their former strengths, and new forces such as Tottenham are rising strongly, the Gunners can no longer even keep their fourth place in the Premier League. , It is estimated that many neutral fans will question the name of the first-class team.

But the reality is far from the theory. Even though everyone is always complaining about Arsenal's downfall, they always agree in their hearts that it is still a strong team that cannot be ignored in European football. The reason is very simple. The man on the dugout for Brie and later the home team at the Emirates Stadium was an old Frenchman named Arsene Wenger.

During his 22 years as the head coach of the Gunners, he helped the club in north London win three English top league titles, seven FA Cup wins (the coach with the most titles in history), two League Cup runners-up and one Champions League runner-up, and also completed the first miracle in the history of the Premier League to win the championship with an unbeaten record, and also broke the unbeaten record of England's top league.These honors all show how powerful this team, nicknamed Arsenal, was once under the leadership of the professor.

Compared with the results of leading the team, Wenger's greatest contribution to Arsenal and even the entire British football is his advanced technology and training concepts. A scouting report about the opponent that I got before was used to arrange the formation. There are basically no details in the tactical research. The roughness is comparable to whole wheat bread that has been put on hold for two nights.

It was this man who was considered a "pedant who didn't understand football" (British media slang) at that time, so that the British who had been decayed for hundreds of years saw an opportunity to change. The struggling Premier League has brought new energy, technical style tactical thinking and a modern training model.It can be said that the professor and Sir Alex Ferguson helped the English league to reopen a new era of modern football. I think it is not too much to call them the pioneers of this era.

In the past 22 years, Wenger has deeply imprinted his brand on every inch of the Arsenal club. Except for the very old fans, there must not be many people who will remember him before he took over the Gunners coach , Under the leadership of another foreign coach, George Graham, this team has always been galloping on the green field with the image of a tough and tough-looking Jagged Legion.Although that team has also won many honors such as the League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the European Cup Winners' Cup, when fans now mention Arsenal, the first impression that pops up in their minds will be that the offense is smooth and smooth. The technical genre tactics, and this is the unique label given to the team by the professor.

If Arsenal is Wenger's team, there should be few people who would raise objections. The two are already inseparable as a whole. That's why Li Mudi felt very happy with the news that this meritorious coach offered to resign voluntarily. Such a shock.However, after hearing the other party tell the whole story, the Turin coach understood the helplessness of the old man.

Although the outside world has always called for him to quit get out of class because of the team's sluggish performance year after year, but it is not too big. It was not until this year that it was very likely that he would not be able to qualify for the Champions League that the fans began to defect on a large scale.However, if the top management of the club can give full support, Wenger, who has always been attached to football and the team, will not make the choice to leave the team. Unfortunately, the situation has not developed in the direction of a fairy tale.

The Kroenke family, the world's top sports industry from the United States, successfully acquired 2011% of Arsenal's shares in 63 to obtain absolute control of the club, and became the new owner of this European giant. It went on.

Although Wenger did not have any transfer funds to update the team lineup for five or six seasons due to borrowing to build the Emirates Stadium, but after gritted his teeth and persisted, the Gunners actually had financial pressure after entering 2010. It is not as big as before, but the momentum that had a chance to revive was unfortunately missed because of the new owner of the club.

The Kroenke family also owns NBA Denver Nuggets basketball team, NHL Colorado Avalanche ice hockey team, NFL St. Louis Rams football team and other professional clubs. It has always managed the teams with long-term investment management , They like to hire senior managers such as presidents and managers to professionally manage the team and give them maximum autonomy in decision-making.But the way of long-term operation is also doomed that they will not make large-scale investments like Abramovich and Mansour. At the same time, the Kroenke family's ability to develop Arsenal's commercial value is far inferior to the Glazer family. These are the Gunners. The most fundamental reason for the collapse of this season is that the head coach is nothing more than a blame.

But the fans don't understand the professor's difficulties. They just put all the blame for the team's unsatisfactory performance on the head coach, which is really unfair.At this time, the management did not express their support to the outside world as before, which made Wenger feel a cold chill.

Although he was unwilling to leave his beloved coach seat as a loser, after several exchanges with the club's senior management, he has clearly realized one thing, that is, there is always a feast that never ends.In order to avoid getting a dismissal notice from the club at the end of the season and putting himself in a huge shame, Wenger can only choose to resign voluntarily as a last resort to save face.

Of course, this decision has not been announced yet, but it was reported to the club after discussing with the family.Some media published an article before claiming that if Arsenal can replicate the footprint of Manchester United last season and return to the Champions League by winning the Europa League title in a "curve to save the country", the club may still choose to renew his contract.But on this day, in a hotel in Nyon, Switzerland, Li Moody personally got the sad news from the mouth of the person involved: No matter how the Gunners play in the rest of the season, the team will be in the 40s. A glorious era ends in days, and everything has been settled.

However, Wenger deliberately took time to interview the Turin coach when he was in a situation where he was in a lot of troubles. Obviously, he came here to complain.Even though he was forced to leave the coaching bench of the Arsenal, as a [-]% supporter of the Gunners, he obviously still couldn't let go of the team that played an important role in his life, and hoped to recommend it to the club. A suitable successor, Li Moody, who has a high degree of overlap with him in terms of coaching philosophy and training reserve talents, is the best candidate in his mind.

Although he knows that the club's senior management will basically not refer to his personal opinions in the matter of selecting a new coach, it is almost impossible to hire a coach with a similar style when his own philosophy is considered to be incompatible with Arsenal's modern needs. It may become a reality, but sometimes the particularly stubborn professor still stubbornly believes that his own ideas are the most likely to make the team rise again, so there was a scene where the two met privately after the lottery ceremony.

Faced with the straight-forward question of whether he would like to become the head coach of Arsenal, Li Moody, who was already terrified of the Turin chairman's plan to build a new stadium, naturally would not reject the proposal to switch to a wealthy team, but both of them knew that, In the coming summer, the Turin coach basically has no chance.

After breaking up with Wenger, the Kroenke family definitely hopes to hire a new coach with excellent reputation and coaching experience. The inevitable manifestation of the requirement.

For quite a long time, Stan Kroenke, the leader of the family or consortium, has been emphasizing that they are running the club as a businessman, so in his opinion, as long as Arsenal can enter the Champions League , You can get a decent Champions League participation bonus from UEFA, even if it meets the most basic business needs.

As the head coach of the team, Wenger can be considered to cooperate with his own boss's business philosophy. He has been making tinkering and small-scale transactions in the transfer market, which makes the club's annual financial report always look good, but In terms of competitive performance, it is relatively poor.

However, in the last one or two seasons, Arsenal spent more than expected in order to recruit and retain core players, which aroused the vigilance of the Kroenke family.In order to keep the German international Ozil, the team was forced to offer a super high salary to the abandoned player of Real Madrid, but they could not keep Sanchez, who had decided to leave. The Chilean thigh resolutely wanted to escape from the Emirates Stadium. And he was determined to join his rival Manchester United, which made the Gunners feel very embarrassed.

More importantly, with the decline of the team's performance, the attendance rate of the Emirates Stadium has continued to decline, which has had a huge negative impact on Arsenal's club image and brand.So even if the club owner is no longer willing to invest money in adjusting the lineup, in order to ensure that they can improve their performance next season, they have to continue to spend a certain amount of euros, but considering that the team already has Lacazette and Aubame For a new aid like Yang, presumably the amount of the fee will not be too large.

And since people have put out the "fundamental capital", they will naturally make corresponding high requirements in terms of team performance, and they will also select the best candidates for the new coach. With Li Mudi's current short and pale resume And look, the possibility of successful application is really not too great.Wenger, who was just holding a dead horse as a living horse doctor, still hoped that a miracle would happen, so he came to actively contact the Turin coach to see if he could make the other party more fully prepared.

However, after the two of them communicated in a calm state for a while, the professor gave up his plan to mobilize his few remaining contacts to forcefully recommend Li Modi to the top position, after all, the odds of winning were extremely low.But the two sides did not waste time, but had a talk about the future development of the two.

Although he lost his 22-year iron job, but he is the world's top coach, Wenger naturally has no worries about finding a next home.In fact, since the end of last season, Paris Saint-Germain has expressed its hope that he will become the team's new football director.After many seasons of burning money but the team's performance in the Champions League was not satisfactory, club owners like the Qatari consortium also hope to change their operating strategies so that the team can have a big future. breakthrough.Inviting Wenger to serve as the club's CEO is undoubtedly an important part of their new plan.

And now that Wenger's resignation from Arsenal is a foregone conclusion (although the news of his resignation has not been obtained by the outside world, but with the connections of the Ligue [-] giants, he was the first to get this top secret), Paris seems to be making progress. Consider other possibilities, that is to say, the possibility of hiring a professor as a head coach cannot be ruled out.Of course, according to media reports, it is the former Dortmund coach Tuchel who is closer to the coaching position in Paris. Considering Wenger's mastery of German, it seems that Wenger is still in charge of the club. ideal.

As for Li Moody's thoughts, he did not hide anything from the other party. Since the Turin club's new stadium plan basically cannot be abandoned, so he, who does not want to repeat Arsenal's financial austerity in the past few years, has decided to play in the next few years. After the current contract expired during the season, he voted for a new club.If the Gunners coaching position is still vacant by then, perhaps after the accumulation of achievements in Italy in the past two seasons, Li Moody may become one of the candidates for the new coach.

After an hour and a half of communication, the two of them expressed their respective plans for the future, which laid a good foundation for further in-depth exchanges later.In the end, the two sides sent a wave of tainted milk to each other, hoping that the two teams could join forces in the Europa League final, and then they broke up.

This talk was also mentioned in Wenger's personal memoirs in the future, because he made a good preparation for some important events later, and it has also become a good talk for later generations.

(End of this chapter)