On This Day – 25th July
Replacing David Seaman was always going to be an onerous task for Arsene Wenger. On this day back in 2003 he announced that German international Jens Lehmann would be taking the number one jersey at Highbury.
‘Mad Jens’ cost Arsenal a mere £1.5 million from Borussia Dortmund in Lehmann’s Germany. It would prove to be money well spent as Lehmann would produce some fantastic performances in his time at the club, but was also prone to the odd costly error too.
The main photo for the article is one that I had one my bedroom wall for a number of years. It is of Lehmann diving low to his left to push away a penalty in the last minute of the Champions League Semi Final, thereby helping Arsenal keep their 1-0 aggregate lead intact and reaching their first Champions League Final.
It was in that very Final that after only minutes, Lehmann came rushing out of his area and hacked Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o to the ground. It was a cynical and crazy foul and ‘Mad Jens’ got the red card that the foul deserved. Arsenal went on and lost the game 2-1 courtesy of two soft goals conceded by Manuel Almunia, the substitute goalkeeper brought on to take Lehmann’s place in goal.
The two incidents sum up Jens Lehmann in a nutshell. First, the penalty save and showing remarkable calmness to save a crucial penalty in the final seconds of a match. Secondly, a crazy rush of blood to the head and charging well out of his goal to hack down an opposing forward.
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