Arsene Wenger, former Arsenal coach, said he rejected Real Madrid twice during his time with the English team, despite knowing that he was at a club without resources to win the championship.
The French coach gave an interview to the BBC in which he spoke about the clubs he refused to coach during the years he spent with the Highbury team and named Real Madrid as the one that came closest to signing him.
“Surely Real Madrid, because you don’t know many people who have rejected them twice. And it was to stay in a team that didn’t have the resources to win the championship. I told myself if I was going to take on the challenge of directing to Arsenal, I would do it to the end, “Wenger explained.
On which players he would have liked to sign during his time at Arsenal, Wenger chose Cristiano Ronaldo and said that if he had played with Thierry Henry, Pirés, Wiltord and Bergkamp they might have scored more than 200 goals in one season. In addition, Wenger also recalled that he invited a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic to a test with Arsenal, although he later decided not to sign him.
“I do not regret it because it was a 17-year-old boy who played for Malmoe in the second division in Sweden and nobody knew him. We gave many opportunities to players like him and it was completely normal before we made a decision,” he said.
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