Arsenal fans， 宁要格拉汉姆，不要温格？ (From:泰晤士报)

蓝白黑

Would Arsenal prefer George Graham to Arsène Wenger?


原作者 马修·赛义德 刊登日期 5月20日 《泰晤士报》译者：可汗（From 《足球周刊》2009.06.02）

Football is predicated on partisanship. You pick a team, often for no better reason than your uncle having a parrot named after the stadium, and then support them through thick and thin, getting upset when they lose, joyous when they win, angry when the linesman flags for offside, delirious when the referee bestows a dubious penalty. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked.
足球基于一种党派偏见。你选择了一个队伍通常并没有什么比你的叔叔曾用该球场命名自己的鹦鹉更好的理由然后支持他们，不管祸福风雨，当他们输球时为之难过，赢球时为之狂喜，助理裁判举旗示意越位时为之愤怒，裁判判一个可疑的点球时更是为之狂怒。就是这样，足球一直就是这样。
　　　　
But every so often a man arrives who subverts this logic. A man who creates a team, who embodies a philosophy, that transcends partisanship. A man whose team you want to watch, whose team you want to win, not out of ancient fealty, but for deeper, dare I say more profound, reasons. 　　　　
但时而，总有那么一个人来到足球场上，颠覆了这种逻辑。这个人创造了一支植入哲学，超越党派偏见的球队。这个人的球队你想要看，你想要让他们赢，不是因为远古而来的忠诚，而是因为更深的--让我斗胆说吧--也是更深刻的理由。
　　　　

Rinus Michels did it with Ajax in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a team that expressed the Dutchman's commitment to Total Football, passing the ball from back to front, with Johan Cruyff, the most lyrical of all European footballers, executing flourishes and pirouettes at the top end of the pitch of a kind that delighted those looking on, even when their team were on the receiving end. 　　　　
米歇尔斯在60年代到70年代早期在阿贾克斯做到了这点，那支球队展现了荷兰人对全攻全守的忠诚，他们从后场到前场不停传球，而克鲁伊夫，欧洲在富有诗意的球员，在球场上舞蹈旋转，这种舞蹈是让观看的人如此如醉，哪怕他们其实是在被痛殴的对手。


Brazil did it over the same decades with a species of football that thrilled neutrals; thrilled them even more - if they were being honest about it - than watching their own team. This was football that crossed geographical boundaries, that transcended the trivialities of nationalism, that spoke to the deeper nature of supporters and television viewers around the world. This was football expressing a universal language. 　　　　
巴西国家队在同一时期也用一种让中立球迷兴奋的足球做到了这点。球迷感到，比起看他们自己的球队来——如果他们诚实交代的话——看巴西队更刺激。这是一种超越了地理，超越了民族，直接对话球迷和全球电视观众更深层天性的足球。这是用普世语言阐述的足球。
　　

Arsène Wenger, quite possibly the greatest manager of recent times, has resurrected this language in North London. In the teeth of formidable obstacles, not least the financial constraints under which he willingly and selflessly operates, he has unleashed the kind of calypso football that at one time seemed destined to be strangled and smothered by route-one pragmatism. In so doing, he has provided a priceless service not just to fans at Highbury and now the Emirates Stadium, but to all of us.
　　 阿尔赛纳温格----很可能是近年来最伟大的教练，在北伦敦也复活了这种普世语言。面对巨大的障碍，这不仅包括他自愿无私地面对财务困境，他解放出了这种一度看上去注定要被一号公路式实用主义足球窒息和扼杀的卡吕普索足球（卡吕普索为希腊神话中的海上女神---译者注）

This is about more than sport, it is about life. It is about embracing something that goes beyond the functional and the utilitarian. It is about comprehending the fact that there are moments in football, moments worth striving for, that elevate the whole damn thing beyond the merry-go-round of home and away, victory and defeat. Only a person without a soul could deny that, over the course of almost 13 glorious years, Arsenal have reached for the loftiest ideals and, yes, often attained them. 　　
　　 这不仅仅是足球，这还有关于生活，有关于拥抱一种超越实用和功利的东西，有关于理解这样一种事实：在足球场上有那么一些时刻，值得你去奋战，值得你去为之超越主客场，胜利或失败之类的无聊旋转木马。只有一个没有心灵的人才会否认这一点，在将近13年的光辉岁月中，阿森纳终于试图去触碰这个最高的理想，也经常真的碰到了。


I know, I know. Wenger has failed to win silverware in any of the past four seasons, a fact that we are continually reminded of by a vocal minority of Arsenal fans. But do these people seriously suggest that this is the last word on the matter? That trophies alone are the sole measure of a manager and his methods? That a few extra baubles in a cabinet in a back room at the Emirates would have a deeper, more urgent meaning than the memories that Wenger's teams have left in the hearts and minds of those who have been fortunate enough to watch them?
　　 我知道，我知道，在过去的4个赛季中，温格没有赢得过任何奖杯。但难道这些人真的认为这就是一切的一切吗？酋长球场某密室的橱中多两个额外的装饰，难道比温格的球队给那些有幸看到他们比赛的球迷留下的美好记忆，有更为重要的意义？

Would Wenger's critics prefer a return to the George Graham era that had success aplenty, but whose teams played the kind of stultifying, dispiriting, anti-poetic football that many of us would cross the North Circular to avoid? 　　
　　 难道温格的批评者会宁愿回答格拉汉姆的时代?那时阿森纳取得了足够的成功，但却踢的是一种单调乏味，毫无生气，反诗意的足球，一种我们中很多人宁愿跨过北环路(北环路是通过北伦敦的环城公路）来逃避足球？


Of course, the real irony of losing Wenger to Real Madrid would be that the Emirates would forfeit not only the most thrilling spectacle in club football, but also the success that his critics seem to care about above all else. Can these people have memories so short that they forget a tally under the Frenchman including three top-flight titles, four FA Cups, a runners-up position in the Champions League, not to mention five runners-up positions in the league and one in the Uefa Cup?

Even this supposedly grisly season has produced results: fourth in the strongest domestic league in the world, against teams boasting far superior financial resources, plus a semi-final place in the Champions League. Do those booing Wenger's players, deriding his abilities, mocking his judgment - at the shareholders meeting last week, to his face - not get it? Can this ragtag group of fans really be so blind to his achievements, his philosophy, his admirable attempt to bring sustainable youth development into club football?

The reality is that were Wenger to depart for Spain, the cement that keeps this team of young disciples in place would vanish in an instant of dreadful reckoning. Cesc Fàbregas, a player of rare and profound ability (and who, we should remember, was injured for a large part of the season), would be off, as would a number of Arsenal's other young stars, in no small part because of their deep belief in their leader. Few managers have commanded greater respect from the troops than Wenger.

But even if a minority of Arsenal fans do not deserve him, it is difficult to see Wenger moving to Real, a club whose policy of throwing silly money at galácticos is the kind of thing he had in mind when he used the term “financial doping”. Florentino Pérez, who is standing for the presidency of the Spanish club again, is doubtless trying to sway the Frenchman with silky words and beguiling promises, but Wenger is surely too wise to put his trust in a man who, during his most recent, six-year period at the Bernabéu got through half a dozen coaches: Vicente Del Bosque, Carlos Queiroz, José Antonio Camacho, Mariano García Remón, Vanderlei Luxemburgo and Juan Ramón López Caro.

In a marvellous television interview last year, Wenger was asked: “You once said that you could not remember life at the clubs before Arsenal. Do you ever see yourself anywhere else?” Wenger's reply was, like the man himself and the club he manages, a perfect synthesis of idealism and pragmatism: “You get so deeply involved. I always say that a manager has a love story with the club and he has to behave like it will be a love story for ever. But he should not be so stupid to believe it will never end.”

If this love story is drawing to an end, if Wenger really has had enough, one thing is certain: the heartache will extend way beyond the confines of the Emirates and come to engulf all who watch and support English football.
如果这个爱情故事就此终结，如果温格最终受够了，那有一件事是肯定的：一种心疼将超越酋长球场的界限，吞噬所以喜欢观看和支持英格兰足球的人。