Wenger slams European approach

ARSENE WENGER has claimed that European players’ insular attitudes are partly to blame for their struggles at the World Cup, although he added that in-fighting, poor technique and an easy qualifying campaign were also factors to Europe’s poor showing in South Africa.

Only six out of the 13 European sides in action made it to the last 16 compared to the previous five tournaments, when a minimum of nine nations made it through every time. In contrast, all five South American sides made it to the last 16 and four of them are in the quarter-finals with the fifth, Chile, only being eliminated by Brazil.

Arsenal coach Wenger was typically forthright about the reasons for the flop, and suggested an inability to cope in a different environment was responsible.

“You have to ask yourself why the European teams have struggled and personally, I think that European players are not used to leaving their countries, unlike South American teams, who have been doing that for a very long time,” he said. “But when we go out of Europe, we lose players.

“Secondly, and this is true for European and African teams, I saw that there was a lot of tensions inside the teams. It’s hard to live in harmony for 40 days. They were not ready to last longer than three weeks. It’s disappointing. In that respect, the South Americans are also probably more mature.”

If results all go in their favour over the next two days, all four semi-finalists could be from South America. Considering that the last team that was not Brazil or Argentina to make it to the last eight was Peru in 1978, this is some achievement.

And while experts have looked at the different coaching systems employed by the likes of Chile boss Marcelo Bielsa and the wily Uruguay Oscar Tabarez, Wenger has a simpler explanation: that qualifying for the competition against each other automatically raises the standard of play.

“On a collective point of view, I feel South American teams are better prepared. They play more like clubs than European teams. They play 18 games to qualify and this is an advantage,” he said.

“From a technical point of view, South American teams have been better. That has really struck me since the start of the competition. I speak of collective and individual technique. Individually, there is also real quality in their passes, they play carefully, much more than other teams.”

Wenger went on to praise the adventurous style adopted by Ghana and was pleased that teams fielding three forwards, like Argentina and Holland, had gone far. “I appreciated the teams who took risks offensively,” he said in an interview with France Football, out today.

The French coach had tipped Spain as his favourites before the tournament but has since switched to Argentina because their three-man strike-force of Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez and Gonzalo Higuain are “killers in front of goal”. Wenger felt that the winner of Saturday’s clash between Argentina and Germany would win the World Cup.