Interviewer: What’s the secret? Is it timing, technique - what do you need to do to be a world class passer?
Wenger: First off, I would like to say that it’s the essence of our sport, because passing is experiencing — me giving away the ball to somebody else. So I love that because it’s the basic act of generosity, you know. Passing is being generous. And then, you have being generous in different ways. That means, you have that quality of the passing and the timing of the pass - you understand very well that if I give you the ball early you will have more time available to give the ball to somebody else. If I give you the ball a fraction of a second late, your opponent will have time to close you down and put you in trouble.
Then, I can give you as well, if I’m very intelligent, a pass that gives you already the best possible opportunity to see a solution and to give you a pass that makes the next solution available. Then I’m already in the second degree of passing, that means I make your life easier… I took part of your next job, and that of course is then already super generous… and the technique, that means I see if I give you the ball on your right foot you can give the ball to the next player - and some people give you the ball on your left foot and they put you in trouble, but they think they have done a good pass.
So the quality pass is something that makes the circulation fluid. And for that, of course, it demands technical ability, it demands intelligence, it demands a generous attitude, and so I am a big lover of the passer, but I am a big lover as well of the timing of a pass. If somebody delays decisions, even if he makes a pass after it’s a good pass, but it gives less time available to the guy who gets then the ball. So all the aspects have to be right, the moment of my decision, the quality of my pass.
Sometimes the problem I have is I have 3/4 green lights - if I have the ball, I want to have as many green lights around me as possible. Then I have to choose the best green light. Then I have to give the green light I have chosen the best possible solution to find other green lights. So, that demands quick vision, good decisions, and quality in my execution. When I sit on the bench, sometimes I realize how difficult it is in the modern game. I see a player who gets the ball. I see two or three green lights - if he controls the ball, two have already gone out, then he has to find new ones, you know, and that’s the difficulty of the modern game — is the speed of the decisions available to a player who gets the ball, how quickly they go away, because everybody moves so quickly around.gi