However, a move never managed to materialize.
Arsene Wenger will go down as one of the greatest managers in the history of the beautiful game, but he might well have made his name at a club other than Arsenal. Wenger has revealed that he was approached several times by Real Madrid to become their new manager, but turned them down.
“No regret, Regret is that maybe I sacrificed a little bit the winning potential against the loyalty potential. Or the desire to build up the club and the influence I had on the club.” admitted Wenger in an interview for beIN SPORTS.
“To build up the club when we built the stadium, against the fact that I could have won more by going somewhere else and being less limited financially. At the end of the day, I’m happy to do what I did, to have done what I did.”
The Frenchman believes the structure at a club like Madrid was not to his liking.
“I thought from a very young age I want to work the way I like to work,” he added. “Sometimes today I weigh up a little bit ‘have I done well or not?’“.
“But I felt that I was at Arsenal where I met my needs the way I wanted to work. Why change that and maybe be in a bit more glorious situation but a less happy situation, where I had less influence on the club like Real Madrid?”
“So I decided that I keep trying to experience my love story at Arsenal,” the 69-year-old Frenchman concluded.
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