Mikel Arteta lifts the lid on ‘terrifying’ baptism of fire at PSG aged 18 as Arsenal boss reflects on his footballing education alongside Mauricio Pochettino, Ronaldinho and Jay-Jay Okocha ahead of Champions League clash
Of all the tests Mikel Arteta faced during his playing career, it is the one at Paris Saint-Germain that still defines him. ‘I’m still grateful to the club that believed in me at the age of 18,’ he reflected on Monday.
That loan spell was perhaps overshadowed by the midfielder’s later experiences — his two seasons at Rangers, then six years with David Moyes at Everton — but its value is evident in his handling of the likes of teenager Ethan Nwaneri.
The 18-year-old Arteta arrived in the bitter cold of Paris in January 2001. It was the first time he had lived outside his native Spain. He felt homesick and overawed at the beginning of a year-and-a-half loan spell from Barcelona, which planted the seeds of management in Arteta’s mind — and saw him become room-mates with Ronaldinho.
Arsenal face the French giants on Tuesday night in their first Champions League match at the Emirates in this campaign and, for Arteta, it is a reunion with a club he holds close to his heart. You could feel the connection as he glowingly eulogised about an experience some 23 years ago.
‘In a club of that size and city, which is probably the most beautiful one in Europe, it’s an experience that will stay with me forever,’ he said.
‘With team-mates that shaped who I want to be as a player, and I think igniting in me something to become a manager. We had Ronaldinho, Jay-Jay Okocha, Nicolas Anelka, Mauricio Pochettino, Gabriel Heinze. They were all unbelievable.
‘It was terrifying for me, it was for my family. We were in Barcelona when we got the phone call: “You need to pack your bags and fly to Paris, now”.
‘I had not played any professional football and you look at those names. “Are they sure?” But you get there and Luis Fernandez was the manager, he was the one that believed in me. They protected me like a son.’
He went on to play 53 games for PSG in a side that won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2001 — the last piece of European silverware PSG have secured.
That was before moving to Rangers for £6million in 2002 after PSG and Barcelona could not agree a deal. The Spaniard had wanted to stay.
Up there among Arteta’s personal highlights from his stint in Paris was playing alongside, and rooming with, future Brazilian great Ronaldinho.
The Ballon d’Or winner was only 21 when he arrived from Gremio in July 2001 and close in age to Arteta. Even then, Ronaldinho’s talents in training left the Arsenal boss bewildered.
‘I had to do all the defending because I had Ronaldinho and Okocha in front of me — imagine!’ he says. ‘It was super, almost unreal. It was a dream for me.
‘We were room-mates for a year and a half. But I could not see him like this at the time, obviously. But he was a huge talent. He was coming from B
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