Mikel Arteta fun fact: when the Arsenal manager was a young player at Paris Saint-Germain, his roommate on hotel stays was Ronaldinho. And it is certainly fun to imagine how that went given Ronaldinho’s well-earned reputation as a party prince. Did they have the same bedtimes? “With me, he was always perfect,” Arteta says, with a smile.
Sadly, Arteta was not asked to detail his top five nights out with the Brazilian. But as Arsenal prepared to host PSG in Tuesday’s glamour Champions League tie, Arteta’s eyes sparkled as he recalled the period that made his career; the people and the places, the thrilling sense of possibility. He had spent plenty of his press conference last week trying to deal with the fallout from the fiery 2-2 draw at Manchester City. Here the vibes were only positive.
There were numerous moments when Arteta seemed a little incredulous about what he had lived through at PSG, as if he was still struggling to process it. Having arrived as an 18-year-old in January 2001 from Barcelona B on an 18‑month loan, his first start for the club, his first as a professional player, was in a 1-1 Champions League draw against Milan at San Siro. “I was in the tunnel, I was looking … it was Berlusconi, Maldini, Shevchenko …” he says. “I was like: ‘Really?’ I was thrown to the lions.”
Areta’s pathway to the first team at Barcelona was blocked by an array of stars, among them Luis Enrique, now the PSG manager. The move to Paris came about quickly and it was terrifying. “For me, for my family,” Arteta says. “We were in Barcelona when we got the phone call: ‘You need to pack your bags and fly to Paris. Now.’ You look at those names [at PSG and think]: ‘Are they sure?’”
What names they were. “Unbelievable,” Arteta says. “We had Ronaldinho, Okocha, Anelka, Pochettino, Heinze. I wanted to stay there [after the loan] but I was owned by Barcelona and they couldn’t find an agreement.”
Arteta joined a struggling PSG. The club had just changed their manager, bringing back Luis Fernández for a second spell, and they were losing as many games as they were winning. “But you get there and Luis Fernández was the one that believed in me,” Arteta says. “That is what you need – someone to give you the chance. I will always be grateful to him. The other inspirations were Pochettino and Heinze. They were next to me all the time and they were guiding me in everything I had to do in my professional life.
“It’s an experience that will stay with me forever, that shaped who I wanted to be as a player and ignited in me something to become a manager. They protected me like a son. It was the perfect environment.”
Ronaldinho did not arrive until July 2001, from Grêmio. Arteta says he transformed PSG before going to Barcelona in 2003 to do the same. “I had to do all the defending because I had Ronaldinho and Okocha in front of me,” Arteta says. “Imagine! It was super, almost unreal … a dream for me. I was so blessed and I had so much energy at that time. I couldn’t waste that opportunity.
“Ronaldinho is the only player that I have seen in history that could transform, by himself, two clubs. He had an aura, an energy, a smile on his face … it was impossible to be next to him and be in a bad mood. And then I never saw a talent like this. In training, in every drill, it was like: ‘How is this possible?’ Physically, it’s impossible to do certain things.”
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Arteta has never faced PSG as a player or manager. He knows what to expect because he knows Luis Enrique. “I am a huge admirer of him,” Arteta says. “He has huge charisma, huge energy. He was always very supportive with the young players [at Barcelona] and what I love about him is that, wherever he has been as a player, as a manager, his fingerprints are all over the place.
“You can see at PSG that it’s his team. They have a clear intention as to how they want to dominate the ball and when they don’t have it they want it straight back. They are really aggressive and they confront you. But that is Luis. Everywhere he plays, against any opponent and in any context, that is how he does it.”
Arteta is expected to be without Ben White. The defender has missed Arsenal’s last two matches with a groin injury and he did not train on Monday afternoon. Riccardo Calafiori was “emotional” after the 4-2 home win against Leicester on Saturday when he felt a muscle problem. He did take part in training.
