Bayern Munich fired head coach Niko Kovač this week after a humiliating 5-1 loss to Eintracht over the weekend. Bayern’s Jerome Boateng was issued a red card in the ninth minute, so the game should have a bit of an asterisk next to it, but a humiliating loss is a humiliating loss and Kovač was out.
Several names floated around about possible replacements for Kovač, from PSG’s Thomas Tuchel to Red Bull sporting group director Ralf Rangnick.
But one name was there, too, a name that they need to consider. No, not only consider. They need to hire him. They need to hire him now.
That man is Arsene Wenger.
The former Arsenal manager, who built some of the greatest teams in Premier League history, has been out of work and futzing around for years now, and we need him back. We need him for the press conferences. We need to see his dour face on the sidelines. We need him for interviews.
God, we need him for interviews.
In 2015, Wenger told L’Equipe: “The only moment of possible happiness is the present. The past gives regrets. And future uncertainties. Man quickly realized this and created religion. It forgives him what he has done wrong in the past and tells him not to worry about the future, as you will go to paradise.”
Read that again! Look at that! A soccer manager! We need this man back in our lives, and weekly! I demand it. We should all be demanding it.
It would make Bayern must-watch soccer. It would give my soccer friends and I hours of things to talk about. We need this.
For actual soccer reasons, Michael Caley of the Double Pivot Podcast makes the right argument: Bayern already took care of the stuff that Wenger is bad at, so all he has to do is the stuff he’s good at!
He’d be in the perfect situation. We get to sit back and watch an enigmatic Frenchman build a beautiful, fluid soccer team and then talk to us about fate and God and fury and religion. Please, Bayern. We need this.
