Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger is worshipped like a God by many followers of the English game for being passionate about his team, uncompromising in his commitment to attacking football, shrewd in his player purchases and willingness to nurture young talent. If this description sounds familiar, and it should, it merely underlines one of the many fascinating details that will unfold in Wednesday’s Champions League quarter final match-up with FC Barcelona in London.

This contest will not only pit two expert managers against each other. Indeed, it represents a clash between the two most high profile proponents of the beautiful game in football today, a collision between two clubs whose culture and history demand attacking football. Will this be the year that Wenger finally leads his young squad to glory, or will Pep Guardiola’s FC Barcelona once again deflate their dreams?

In a football world where a coach’s longevity is often measured in months or even weeks, Wenger’s 14 years as Arsenal boss is something of an anomaly. Wenger, 60, accepted the top spot in London in 1996 after a decade coaching Nancy and Monaco in France, achieving considerable success with the latter, and attracting interest from top clubs around the world.

Wenger has gone on to be the most successful manager in Arsenal’s history. In his second year at the helm, he took his squad to the League and Cup double, an accomplishment he would repeat in 2002. Wenger was lauded again in the 2004 season after going the entire campaign without defeat. In all, Wenger’s Arsenal has won three League titles, and four FA Cups.

High-profile football personalities are always magnets for controversy and Wenger is no exception. Most notably, he has engaged in passionate verbal tussles with referees, fellow managers and their teams in the EPL. He twice publicly branded United attacker Ruud van Nistelrooy “a cheat,” an outburst for which he was fined £15,000. More recently, he became engaged in a spat with then-Chelsea coach José Mourinho who accused him of being a “rat“, a “voyeur“, and with harboring an “unprofessional obsession” with Chelsea. Wenger’s reply: “When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent.”

For all his own success, one undeniable fact arises when you look at Wenger’s career as a manager: despite his reputation and celebrity status, his squad perennially underachieve, and can display a worrying tendency to fall apart at crucial moments.

In 1999, they lost the League title to United on the last day of the season, and in 2000 his team was beaten by Turkish underdogs Galatasaray in the UEFA Cup final. In 2001 Arsenal was upstaged by Liverpool in the FA Cup final, and they threw away a one goal lead in the 2006 Champions League final to lose 1-2 to Frank Rijkaard’s FC Barcelona. Even this season, Arsenal have lost all four of their matches against Chelsea and United, being outscored 10-2 across the series of games.

Wenger has always been committed to fluid attacking football, but his tactical approach to the game has evolved over the years. At the beginning of his term in London, he relied on an orthodox 4-4-2, but has moved in recent years to deploying a single striker in a 4-5-1 formation. This season, Arsenal has been almost exclusively playing a more attack-focused 4-3-3 with attackers and midfielders freely exchanging roles, not unlike Guardiola’s Barcelona squad.

It’s difficult to imagine that Wenger will significantly change his approach to the game on Wednesday, although the details of his formation and squad will have to wait until match day. What is certain is that we will not have to endure 180 minutes of the anti-football we are so often treated to by English opponents. So far, Wenger has promised not to man-mark Lionel Messi, hoping that the attacking verve of both teams will lead to an exceptional spectacle. In an interview after the draw, he noted: “The main thing is the quality of the game you will see on the day, and will not see again maybe for 10 years.”

Wednesday’s clash then promises to be a fascinating duel between two tactically astute football managers. Wenger in particular will be eager to avenge his side’s defeat in the final of 2006, a loss he remembers as “the worst day of my football life.” And when these two teams lineup against each other, they will literally be facing a mirror image in their opponents. In a pre-match profile for The Times, Oliver Kay wrote: “Barcelona are everything to which Wenger aspires: artistic, creative, free-scoring, richly entertaining, largely home-grown and… successful. When they run out at the Emirates Stadium on March 31…they will do so as champions of Spain, champions of Europe, champions of the world — a daunting prospect for Arsenal, whose last trophy came in 2005.”

You can watch Wenger’s reaction to the Barcelona draw here: