The Frenchman joined Nagoya Grampus Eight in 1994 and led a team which had finished 11th out of 12 teams in the previous J.League season to third place while overseeing victory in the Emperor’s Cup.

And, with Arsenal having agreed to face his former club on July 22 as part of their preparations for the 2013-14 campaign, the 63-year-old is excited to travel to Japan.

"It was a welcome change in my life, a fantastic experience," Wenger told the club's official website.

"It's something that changed me profoundly as well. The vision I have of life changed in Japan. It was absolutely a deep, profound and very, very positive experience. I'm very grateful that I went. Perhaps it was a bit crazy of me at the time to decide to go, but I'm thankful for that moment of craziness.

"Maybe (my time in Japan helped me succeed at Arsenal), because I took a distance from the pressure in Europe and came back with a different viewpoint. I can take more distance from decisions now than I could before."

Wenger departed Nagoya after just 18 months in order to join Arsenal, but says his experiences in the J.League proved helpful upon his return to Europe.

"Certainly, my determination was always the same while I was in Japan: I would only leave Japan if it was for a big club in Europe," said Wenger. "Then the big club came for me and that's why I didn't stay, but I was not opposed to the idea of staying.

"When I arrived, Nagoya were known as the burden of the J.League as they had finished bottom of the league the year before and lost 13 games on the trot, so the only target was to lose fewer games. When I arrived there was no relegation, so they just wanted to avoid humiliation.

"Nagoya was linked with Toyota and it wasn't good for them that they were bottom of the league and could not win a game. They had six foreign players but could only field three of them, so three never played, so I had to reorganise all of that in my own way.

"We lost the first few games, but then we took off."