The downbeat note took many Arsenal fans by surprise. In Noah Media Group’s new feature documentary Arsѐne Wenger: Invincible, co-directed by Gabriel Clarke and Christian Jeanpierre, the legendary former Arsenal FC football manager talks frankly on camera of his disappointment at the way his career panned out.
Wenger may have “fulfilled the dream of my life,” taking Arsenal through that famous ‘Invincible’ season of 2003-2004 and beyond, when the team went 49 games unbeaten; he may have won League titles and FA cups while overseeing Arsenal’s move to their new Emirates stadium, but he still felt a nagging sense of dissatisfaction.
In the documentary, Wenger questions himself for not leaving the Club in 2007, when his close friend David Dein, former Vice-Chairman of the Club, departed Arsenal.
“He says directly in the film, ‘I regret,’ using those two words,” Clarke says. “I think he (Wenger) had great loyalty to Arsenal. He just couldn’t find the right time to leave. He couldn’t work out his exit strategy. That was his flaw. He says he was too in love with Arsenal…He knows that is partly his fault. As much as the film is a celebration, it had to reflect that.”
One of Wenger’s most renowned recruits, Thierry Henry, points out that only very rarely do football careers end with players or managers walking off into the sunset at the time of their own choosing.
Wenger didn’t get the exit he wanted. His sense of confusion and betrayal over what happened to him after 22 years in North London, from 1996 to 2018, was obvious. He hasn’t been back to the stadium since he left although, as both the documentary and Wenger’s recent autobiography reveal, he does sometimes drive pass the old Highbury ground, now turned into luxury flats. (“Highbury is my soul, the Emirates is my suffering,” the former Arsenal boss quips poignantly of the two stadiums at which he led the team).
Back in November, Wenger was in the audience for the world premiere of the documentary at the new Picturehouse Cinema in Finsbury Park, in north London. Arsenal’s current manager Mikel Arteta was also in the audience, as was Edu, the club’s technical director. In the aftermath of the screening, Arteta spoke openly about bringing Wenger back to the club.
“I think if he [Wenger] was made an offer, I think it is probably something he would say at the moment, ‘I have a job with FIFA, I have a commitment to FIFA,’” Clarke says of how Wenger’s current job as Chief of Global Football Development would get in the way of a return to Arsenal. It is also doubtful that Wenger would accept a role as just a “figurehead” at a club where he made all the major decisions for over 20 years. Nonetheless, many hope and yearn for his return in some capacity.
“He [Wenger] is a romantic when it comes to football. Arsenal appeals to him in so many different ways,” Clarke reflects on his subject. “The great thing about Arsѐne is that he is very poetic. He enjoys words.”
The triumphant 2003-2004 season is at the centre of the film, Wenger is pictured in front of a big screen in a studio, re-watching moments from some of the most seismic games during his Arsenal tenure. However, directors Clarke and Jeanpierre also look in depth at their subject’s life and career beyond football.
The documentary shows Wenger in his home village, Duttlenheim, in north-eastern France, not far from the German border. As Wenger’s arch rival, now his friend, former Man Utd manager Sir Alex Ferguson observes, this is where his character was forged. It was a small, hard-working community, based around farming. His family famously ran the local bistro.
“I thought I knew a lot about Arsѐne’s story but I didn’t see the village looking that unchanged. It really did look like it would have looked post-war, apart from the nice new football stadium in his name. I think it was vital to get him back there; to look at photos and re-connect [with his past]. He is not the sort of person who is naturally reflective. You find that with so many driven people – that they don’t want to look back. We almost had to force him to do that but he really enjoyed it.”
Clarke believes that Sir Alex Ferguson now has “huge respect” for Wenger, even if they were such ferocious competitors, and indeed enemies, for so long. “I think it [the respect] has grown as a result of the way it ended for Arsѐne. I think Ferguson genuinely feels Arsѐne deserved better from Arsenal football club…Sir Alex gets asked for lots and lots of interviews and selects carefully. I think that just by doing the interview, it is a sign of the respect that is there now but also this sense of ‘thank you Arsѐne because you enabled my career to be better as well.’”
The film, produced by Noah Media Group and co-produced with Federation Entertainment in association with Yvette Production, was shot over a relatively short period. Production began in October 2020 and was completed by July 2021. Time with Wenger himself was limited to just a few days. The former Arsenal boss was interviewed in both French and English as were several of the other key interviewees, among them Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Emanuel Petit and Robert Pires.
Clarke is a familiar figure on UK TV screens, a three times winner of the Royal Television Society Sports News Reporter of the Year award who is very well known for his work for ITV Sport. He also has a blossoming career as a filmmaker. Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (2015), which he co-directed with John McKenna, screened in Cannes Classics. His other documentaries, including Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager (2018) , co-directed with Torquil Jones, and Finding Jack Charlton (2020), co-directed with Pete Thomas, have been released theatrically in the UK.
Clarke co-founded Noah Media Group with Barry Smith, John McKenna and Torquil Jones in 2015. The company has grown rapidly since then. It recently launched its first Netflix Original, 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, about mountaineer Nimsdai Purja, and has partnered with BT Sports Films on the new docuseries South Of The River, about the generation of brilliant young footballers (Reiss Nelson, Jadon Sancho, Joe Gomez and many others) from the same small part of south London.
“It’s just a matter of balancing time…you’ve just got to be careful that you balance it so you’re maximising your own quality,” Clarke reflects on how he combines his still intensely demanding work as sports journalist with his work as director of some of the UK’s most successful recent sports documentaries.
Arsѐne Wenger: Invincible was released in UK cinemas on 12 November 2021 and is available now on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download. It is also due to debut on Amazon Prime Video in the UK in 2022. A French version of the documentary is due to go out early on Canal+ early in the New Year.
