Top of the Morning to y’all
For ardent football fans around
the world, the off season can be a gruelling period. Seeing your darling team
play every week for the period between August and May can be very addictive and
the short span of time between the close of the season and the start of a new
one can be a time to delve into history and know the club, its staff and its
players a little better and that's what I will be bringing to you all in this
edition of the blog and subsequent ones.
So here are some facts I bet most
people never knew about Arsene Wenger
Arsene Wenger was a Professional
Footballer and was Wack at it:
That Arsene played football might not be news to
most gunners but how good he was might be. Yes. He was absolutely wack. His stats
are not exactly what you would call impressive. Wenger made his professional
debut at the age of 29 years old for RC Strasbourg though he had been playing
for amateur team FC Mulhouse where he made 56 appearances and scored 4 goals. During
his time with FC Mulhouse, he studied in the University of Strasbourg where he
bagged his degree in Economics and took English classes three times a week. At Strasbourg,
he made a whopping 12 appearances in 3 years (11 in the league and one in the
UEFA Cup) and tasted league success in the 1978-79 season. He hung his football boots afterward.
Who says Chamakh and Park can’t be
great football people.
No Stranger to Relegation Battles:
Wenger’s first managerial job was
at AS Nancy after he was recommended for the job by Michel Platini’s father
Aldo where he finished 11th in his first season. The following
season, Wenger’s team finished 18th and had to win a playoff game to
stay in the league. He finally managed to get his team relegated the next
season after finishing the season in 19th place then left the club
by mutual consent for Monaco. At Monaco, he won the league and cup before being
fired at the start of the 1994-95 season after a bad start to the season and
the team were languishing in 17th place.
Monaco should have waited till the
end of the season, they would have finished third.
Arsene Who?
That was the headline of the
Evening Standard Newspaper when it reported the appointment of Wenger by
Arsenal in 1996.
Tony Adams also said this about him.
At first, I thought: What does this Frenchman know about football? He wears glasses and looks more like a schoolteacher. He’s not going to be as good as George Graham. Does he even speak English properly?
The man would later go on to be
the greatest manager the club ever have.
Lesson: Never underestimate a Frenchman
that wears big glasses and looks like a school teacher
Wenger has a World Footballer of
the Year Medal Somewhere in his House:
Well am not so sure about this one
but in 1995 when newly crowned World Footballer of the year George Weah was
being crowned, he called Wenger on the stage and as an appreciation to Wenger’s
influence on his career and gave him the medal. Well if u were wondering what Wenger
did to George Weah to deserve such an honour, he really did not do much for
him. He just plucked him from a little known Cameroonian club Tonnerre Yaoundé,
brought him to Monaco and when he went to Ac Milan, he was given the award of
being the best footballer on the planet. Yeah Wenger did not do much for George
Weah.
Wenger has an Asteroid named after
him:
Oh yeah you heard me right. He has
an asteroid named after him. The asteroid was discovered by Astronaut Ian P.
Griffin who is an ardent Arsenal fan and decided to name it after him. The asteroid
is between 3 to 9 km in diameter and it orbits between Mars and Jupiter and it
takes 4.23 years to complete one circle of the sun. It’s the only asteroid that
is named after a football manager. And he has not even won the champions league
yet.
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