But that goal relies on a trick.
‘Yes, and it looked quite special, but only because there was a goal. That justified the trick which then becomes part of something bigger. The trick makes the goal and the goal makes the trick.’
Ian Wright says he knew you meant every millisecond of the Newcastle goal because he saw you score a similar one – perhaps even better – in training.
‘Really? I don’t remember.’
He says Martin Keown, who was the best in the business at that time, was marking you tightly and you had your back to goal. The pass comes from the side and you somehow flick the ball not around Martin but inside him. Ian says it was one of the most amazing things he ever saw because Martin was always full-on, even in training.
‘Yeah, he was.’
Apparently everyone just stopped and applauded – even Martin.
‘I’m not sure. Let me think . . . Oh yeah, I think I know the one he means. It was in training, but at Highbury. Sometimes you have these Junior Gunners training sessions and I believe I did it in a game there.’
So lots of people saw it?
‘Eighty-eight people probably! Maybe it was seventy-seven and a half. Anyway, Martin was in the back four, left central defender. I’m pretty sure of that. He’s marking me, and I’m running from the left towards the middle and he’s close behind and slightly to the right. It’s difficult to describe, but I think the ball comes from the touchline. That means it’s going across my body from my left. Martin expects me to control the ball and keep going across him. There’s no danger from his point of view. But, instead of controlling the ball with my right instep, at the last moment I pass my foot over the ball and flick it back with the outside of the foot.’
What?! You’re running and suddenly stop and twist inside out??
‘Well, no. It’s coming across me and I go over it and . . . chack! . . . now I’m going back the other way. You have to be in balance, and you have to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. It’s like this: foot over the ball and flick back, but all in one step. Normally you’d control the ball without changing direction. Here you turn the foot to the right like a stepover with the ball moving, and foot over the ball – don’t touch it! – and now your foot is on the other side of the ball and you can touch it back inside. It’s the contact with the ball that makes the difference.’
Then you stop?
‘No. I go over the ball and make a turn. It’s a sharp turn, not a stop. I know I’m going to turn. The defender doesn’t know. So I do my turn and he’s out of position and I have my two yards and I get my shot away and it goes in. I tried it a few times, actually. It’s a simple movement. Creative again, knowing what to do and where to go. It’s a shame there is no footage. Martin would appreciate seeing it.’
19
THE CHEF
On 28 September 2002, three and a half years after losing the title at Elland Road, a very different Arsenal team walked off the same pitch to huge applause – from the Leeds fans. Yorkshire supporters understand the game as well as anyone and the powerfully inventive technical football that swept their team to a 4-1 defeat had been astonishing. As the home fans queued for Gunners’ autographs, Leeds coach Terry Venables declared that the new Arsenal were better than any of the Manchester United teams of the previous decade and comparable to the great Ajax of the early seventies.
It would be two years before anyone called Arsenal the ‘Invincibles’, but they were rewriting the record books almost every week. The game at Leeds meant the reigning Double champions had scored in 47 consecutive matches and racked up 22 away league games without defeat, beating records by Chesterfield and Nottingham Forest. Most observers assumed – wrongly, as it turned out – that Arsenal would walk away with the league and the BBC’s website posed a question that was already a cliché: ‘Are Arsenal England’s best-ever side?’ Arsene Wenger didn’t usually draw attention to the near-fulfilment of his Plan, but after the match he noted that his team was changing positions all over the field, posing danger from everywhere and playing ‘great football, Total Football’.
In retrospect, one of the most intriguing things about the match at Leeds was the Bergkampian assist for the fourth goal. A 30-yard pearl-handled dagger of a pass pierced the heart of the home defence to put in Kanu. But Dennis was not on the field. He was 33 now and, along with Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg, was rested after the no-less majestic 4-0 Champions League destruction of PSV in Eindhoven three days earlier. Rather, the pass against Leeds was provided by 19-year-old Jermaine Pennant, destined to play just 12 times for Arsenal. Another promising young talent, Pascal Cygan, was a rock in defence and Arsenal’s domination was such that by the end, two substitutes, Francis Jeffers (who would end up, at age 32, playing for Accrington Stanley) and Oleg Luzhny (the reserve right-back playing in left midfield) were gleefully swapping passes deep inside the Leeds penalty area. None of these four stayed long at the club or would ever be considered members of the Arsenal pantheon. Yet here they were playing divine football. How?
According to the principles of homeopathy, water will take on the characteristics of whatever substance it is shaken with and will retain those characteristics even when the original substance is no longer present. Thierry Henry has a simpler explanation: the whole squad was influenced by Dennis Bergkamp. ‘He was an example to us all. If you are intelligent and you don’t know how to feed off Dennis then you are an idiot! He doesn’t have to talk. Just watch. He doesn’t have to come to you. Just watch him!’
In similar vein, Ray Parlour remembers how he and Edu thoroughly outplayed the Inter midfield when Arsenal won 5-1 at the San Siro in 2003. ‘They had some very well-respected players but we pulled all the strings. They couldn’t get near us. After the game the Italians were saying: “We didn’t expect you to control the whole game!” But at that time, technically, I was just getting better and better.’
Because of Wenger or because of Dennis?
‘Both. Dennis was always a big factor. He would always see everything around him, and he was such a clever, clever player. He affected all the players at the club. And Wenger was always making you think. With him it was always top-quality, high-intensity training. And he always likes a bit of movement. He loved it when people were changing positions in the game. You fill the gaps, don’t you? If the attack breaks down, you don’t just think: “Oh, he’s got to get back in there.” You fill in. It just happened organically. It’s part of a good team. If you play a section on the field, you’ve got to have a good understanding with the people around you. I wouldn’t have a lot to do with whoever played left-back or left-winger, but I’d know to go into the box, to the back post if they get to the line. You have pockets in the team and you all know where you’re going. And a good team ethic always needs different sorts of players: technically good players who can open things up, like Dennis or Pires, workers like myself and Patrick Vieira, who can control and try to win the ball back in good areas, and good defenders.’
Did you realise you were creating something new in England?
‘I don’t think we thought about that. We just got on with it. We just played and enjoyed it. Everybody wanted the ball, which was very important. There was no one who would hide in that team. You’d have some bad games here and there, but generally it was very good most games.’
Thierry Henry, top goal-scorer and increasingly the team’s dominant personality, was an admirer of the Dutch style and knew exactly in whose steps Arsenal now followed. When he arrived from Juventus in 1999, Thierry had hoped to wear the number 12 shirt in honour of his hero Marco van Basten, who’d worn it at Euro ’88. Since that number was taken, he accepted the number 14 instead and he went on to add lustre to a number first made famous in football by Johan Cruyff. Homage to Cruyff was never his intention, but sometimes Thierry even resembled the Dutchman in his speed, skill and tendency to drift to the left and cut in from the wing. He was also aware of the old totaalvoetballer’s influence on the new Arsenal
. ‘Cruyff took the Dutch game to Barcelona when he became the boss. And Arsene made it his way. At Arsenal we used to play four-four-two and you might say: “That’s not Dutch.” Sometimes it was three-four-three or whatever. But the formation doesn’t matter. Whatever way Arsene sent his team out onto the field the mentality was Total Football. If it’s four-three-three or six-four-zero with no strikers, I don’t care about that. It’s still Total Football. Attack at any time. Everybody attacks. Everybody defends. That’s the Dutch idea. But along the way, you make it your style of Total Football.’
And what a gourmet style it became.
Thierry: ‘Dennis and me, and Robert [Pires], Sylvain Wiltord and Kanu were on the same page. We were giving goals to each other all the time. People say the other guys were feeding me. I fed them, too. A hell of a lot. So we were feeding each other, but Dennis was the chef. He was feeding us all. That was the beauty of that team. I don’t know how many goals we scored in that two or three years with passes inside the opponents’ box . . . boom! boom! boom! It was a lot! No one wanted to keep the ball too long. If just one guy had kept it too long . . . wheeeeeeeuuw [mimes crashing plane]. Disaster! Every single pass: one-two-go! Not only in front of goal but everywhere. “He’s alone – give it to him! He’s alone – give it to him!” Fast! Everything opens up when there is understanding and you have a clever team and a certain way that the boss is asking you to play. We were opening teams up just like that. And remember, Highbury was not a big pitch. To do that at Highbury was not easy at all. People said: “It’s easy, they’re not defending,” and I’d say [deadpan sarcastic face]: “Yeah, I know – but we are moving.”’
As Arsene Wenger explains: ‘The football I like is of a high technical level, based on movement and on team play with a build-up from the back. Why do I like that? Because I just think the game is created to give everybody a chance to express what it is in him, and not to be just a servant for everybody else.’ To Wenger, that’s the moral difference with defensive football. ‘What brings you to the game is the pleasure to play. And just because you are professional doesn’t mean you should get away from that pleasure of playing. It’s all just based on the positive philosophy of the human being and the right to express who you are.’
Wenger prefers a musical metaphor. ‘For me, football is an orchestra. The more they are inspired by the same music, the more they have a chance to play a good song. The players are all professionals. They know how to play Mozart. They know how to play Verdi. Intelligence, sensitivity and guidance from outside are also important because I am like a conductor.’
The team’s golden age ran roughly from 2001 to late 2004. Bob Wilson still marvels at the wonder of having Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry in the same side. ‘I still think we will not see anything like that unbeaten season again in my lifetime and I don’t think that team has ever received the recognition they deserve. It was nearly the perfect club side, the perfect jigsaw. Both Dennis and Thierry were extraordinary footballers and at the same time you had wonderful defensive players in the team as well. It wasn’t just one player who would make a big difference but several. You had Vieira, you had Bergkamp, you had Henry, you had Pires . . . In any normal era, Pires would have been the superstar. It was absolutely amazing.’ The team won the League and Cup double in 2002, the FA Cup in 2003, the League again without losing a match in 2004, and extended their unbeaten run to a record 49 matches in October 2004. Only the Champions League eluded them.
The rhythm of the team’s famously deadly counter-attacking was rehearsed at London Colney. With static mannequins standing in for defenders, the team practised moving the ball from one end of the field to the other within seven or eight seconds. As with the Henry–Bergkamp breakout from a Spurs corner which led to Patrick Vieira’s goal in the championship-deciding game at White Hart Lane in 2004, the results were often spectacular. Mostly, though, Arsenal just attacked and improvised. Thierry: ‘If you arrived late at Highbury – ten or thirty minutes late – then you had a problem because we were already three-nil up. Before you step on the field you have that feeling you are going to be two-nil up in ten minutes. You start to talk before the game about how you’re going to score, and when you’re going to score. Even if you were playing Man United, still you had the feeling you’re going to score. To have the feeling that you will win by two, or three . . . it’s weird. You don’t fully appreciate it at the time, but I do remember we said to each other: “I hope people realise what we are doing.” We knew we were doing something special. It was the same feeling at Barcelona later. You’d look at the ref like: “Please don’t blow the whistle! Can’t we have another minute? Can’t we just have another twenty minutes?” It’s the beauty of mastering something. You see in the eyes of the opponent they are accepting it. And you’re not just grinding out results. You’re playing the right way and making opponents give up. You don’t force it. You don’t bully anyone. Your team is just playing well and doing what you’re supposed to do. You see the other team thinking: “OK, you won, whatever, please stop now . . . ” We didn’t win the trophies Man United did, but we won some. And the biggest trophy for me was when people were stopping me in the street when I was in Italy or France or Spain and saying: “I don’t like Arsenal, but you guys could play!” I’m a competitor and usually the only thing that matters is to win. But that was the exception to the rule.’
Arsene Wenger’s preference for his players – especially attackers – to be under 30 is well-known: ‘At some stage I doubt the players,’ he explains. ‘I had always the same respect and admiration for Dennis, and he never let it drop, his focus. Of course, when you get older, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, up front it’s more difficult. The capacity to win a decisive fight diminishes. But he adapted remarkably well to his evolution. He didn’t drop too much physically in his quantity of work. And because he had exceptional vision, he still served the team by the quality of his passing.’
As Dennis headed towards his mid-thirties, rumours of his impending retirement became a feature of every summer. Yet he defied expectations and played on, signing yearly contracts. By the time his testimonial game became the inaugural match at the brand new Emirates Stadium in 2006, Dennis was 37 years old. But he had almost left before the 2003-04 season – which is to say that the Invincibles almost never happened. Arsenal’s offer in the summer of 2003 was less than half his existing contract. Dennis felt insulted and, for the only time in his career, authorised his agent Rob Jansen to place a story in the press about the situation. Embarrassed, David Dein rectified matters within a day and Dennis reported for pre-season training.
The team almost failed to become the Invincibles for another reason, too. Thierry: ‘I remember we clinched the title at the Lane and the boss said we could go the whole season unbeaten and we really weren’t very interested. I think we had four or five games to go. The boss had been in the game a long time and he understood. He’s going: “Come on guys! To go the whole season unbeaten! No one has done that in history.” We were like: “Whatever. Come on, man, we’ve just won the league.” Going unbeaten sounded OK, but it was more like: “If it happens, it happens.” When we won the Double in 2002, we didn’t lose any of our away games. That’s also not bad. People forget about that. And then the following season Arsene came up with the idea and said: “This team can stay unbeaten.” Why would you say that and try to provoke everybody? But that’s Arsene. He wasn’t trying to provoke anyone. He was just saying what he thought.
‘After we’d won the title in 2004, it’s not that we wanted to take it easy. I use the analogy of the boxer. The boxer will never go another fight for fun. In the next games you have nothing to lose because you’re already champions. So you’re thinking: “If that guy makes his run, I don’t have to cover because even if we concede a goal, even if we lose the game it doesn’t matter because we’re champions. Even the fans won’t care.” Our next game was Birmingham at home and it was shocking! It was one of the worst games we ever pla
yed at Highbury. No one was running. Nothing. Not even an opportunity. And then we went to Portsmouth and we were one-nil down at half time and we all had a go at each other and decided: “OK, let’s play for this now.” And we ended up going unbeaten for the season and everyone still talks about that side. But it’s crazy how you don’t think about it at the time. I also had the opportunity to play with that great Barcelona team, and with the great French team, and we didn’t think about it either. You don’t think you’re making history. OK, when you win the World Cup and lift the trophy it’s obvious. But at Arsenal we never talked about it. We never said: “Oh man, can you believe we’re still unbeaten?” And the following season I’ll always remember when we passed Nottingham Forest’s record of forty-two games unbeaten. But we nearly blew it against Middlesbrough: three-one down with twenty-seven minutes to go at Highbury and we won five-three.’
How important was Dennis for the Invincibles?
‘Very important. The way he was on the field, the way he conducted himself, the way he approached the game, the way he was brainy . . . His vision, the way he used to see the play three or four seconds before anyone . . . . I think even in the dressing room he could see the play! We were so lucky to have that man in the team. I’m not talking about age but about guts. What I liked about him all through that [later] period was his attitude. Whenever he had to step off the bench and make the difference, he made the difference. He could have gone: “I’m not playing. I’ll try to score when I come on but I won’t do more . . . ” But do you know how many times we played him as a holding midfielder? Or on the right? The guy was defending! Tackling! Trying to score! Dennis Bergkamp at thirty-five! That’s why Dennis was The Man at Arsenal. He has ten minutes at the end of the game to make a difference and you see him coming on with the right attitude. That’s why I say: “Yes! He was so important for that and everything else. When I saw Dennis Bergkamp on the field, tackling someone . . .’
Stillness and Speed: My Story Page 22