From ‘Little Mikel’ to the cusp of greatness: How Arteta was forged
From ‘Little Mikel’ to the cusp of greatness: How Arteta was forged
Sam DeanSat, May 30, 2026 at 5:05 AM UTC
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After winning Arsenal’s first title for 22 years, Mikel Arteta stands on the brink of lifting the club’s first Champions League trophy
Mikelito. To translate it literally, it means “little Mikel”. That was the name used by Luis Enrique, the Paris St-Germain head coach, to describe his former colleague Mikel Arteta earlier this month. It is a term of affection, and it was no doubt meant with warmth, but it also spoke of the dynamic between the two coaches ahead of Saturday’s Champions League final.
Arteta, at 44, is 12 years younger than Enrique. As the “Mikelito” comment would suggest, he is unquestionably the junior man in this relationship. As a coach, Enrique has managed more clubs and won more trophies. As players, too, the relationship was not one of equals: Arteta was an enthusiastic teenager at Barcelona, looking to make his breakthrough in the senior side, while Enrique was an established first-team star.
When Arteta was living at Barcelona’s La Masia academy, he could see the first team training from his dormitory window. He would literally watch the likes of Enrique and Pep Guardiola and dream of one day becoming just like them. His ultimate goal was to play for Barcelona.
Arteta grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona
As he developed, Arteta would train with these players regularly and play for Barcelona’s B side. But he never did realise his dream. The fierce competition for places at Barcelona resulted in him leaving the club – for PSG, as it happens – before he could make a competitive senior appearance.
In other words, Enrique and Guardiola were the older masters who prevented this young apprentice from ever fulfilling his ambitions as a player. And in the past few campaigns, that has also been true of Arteta as a manager. He was routinely thwarted by Guardiola in the Premier League and last season was defeated by Enrique in the Champions League semi-finals. For Arteta, there must have been times when it has felt like these two men would forever stand between him and his greatest aspirations.
Luis Enrique has the upper hand on Arteta in their head-to-heads - Julian Finney/Getty Images
Now, though, Arteta comes into this weekend’s Champions League final shortly after ending Guardiola’s dominance of him in the Premier League. Arsenal’s title triumph over Manchester City represented the moment that Arteta finally overcame a man who is simultaneously a close friend and his biggest rival. Against Enrique and PSG this weekend, Arteta will look to repeat the trick. Victory would prove, once and for all, that “Mikelito” is no longer the understudy.
Battle for places at Barcelona
Arteta has always been a ferociously driven individual and an intense competitor. Xabi Alonso, his close friend and childhood team-mate in the Basque Country, once said of him: “He is a competitive animal.”
Much of this seemingly stems from his upbringing in San Sebastián, where he spent most of his childhood playing football on the beach. The values of his home city, he has said, are commitment and effort, with a strong emphasis on winning. The idea of battling, of fighting for victory, is in the blood: San Sebastián has a long and brutal history of military activity.
Arteta and Xabi Alonso (right) as kids growing up in San Sebastian - Facebook
On a more individual level, Arteta’s inability to fulfil his dream at Barcelona must have fuelled him for so much of his career. It was hardly a significant failure, given the quality of the players he was competing with for a place (as well as Enrique and Guardiola, Arteta was up against a young Xavi and Andrés Iniesta), but it was an objective he did not achieve. For a man of Arteta’s competitiveness, such feelings must stick in the gut.
Arteta (centre) competed with Pep Guardiola (left) and Xavi Hernandez (right) for a place at Barcelona
The easy assumption to make, given what we know of Arteta and what we see of him as Arsenal manager, is that his intense determination to succeed has been the driving force behind every decision he has made. But this is not the case. Arteta is far more emotional than many observers would expect. He is simply not the mechanical robot-coach that his detractors accuse him of being.
When he moved from Rangers to Real Sociedad in 2004, for example, his primary reason for doing so was to reunite his family. A few weeks before Sociedad called, his parents had informed him they were getting divorced. In an interview with the BBC in 2024, Arteta explained that he felt “so guilty” and “very responsible” for the breakdown of their marriage, because his career had resulted in his family moving all over Europe. His hope was that, by moving back home from Scotland and playing for Sociedad in San Sebastián, he could fix these problems. The actual football, and the suitability of the club, was secondary.
Fresh start in England
The move to Sociedad went so badly for Arteta that he left for Everton within a few months. Perhaps as a consequence of those difficulties in Spain, on and off the field, the player who arrived at Goodison Park was serious, stubborn and desperate to make the most of the opportunity he had been given in the Premier League.
“The thing that was different about Mikel when he signed for us was that he had brought his own fitness coach and physio with him,” says Andy Holden, Everton’s former assistant coach. “We had never seen a player do that before, but Mikel’s attention to detail was forensic and he was determined to get the maximum from himself.
“Mikel became the instigator for how we played. When he was on the ball, he knew how to speed up the tempo or slow it down. He thought about everything and he listened to whatever you said.
“He also had a side to him where he wasn’t afraid to challenge your opinion – and the thing about him was that, nine out of 10 times, he would be right with what he said.
Arteta spent six years at Everton, making more than 209 appearances - Gary M Prior/Getty Images
“He was a great player but most importantly he is a gentleman. My niece got married last Christmas, the same day as Arsenal were playing Brighton at home. Her husband is Spanish and I’d messaged Mikel to say where I was and hoped he was keeping well. Later that evening, he sent a video to the happy couple, wishing them the best. He didn’t have to do anything, but that’s the kind of person he is. He has stuck to his principles this season and he has deserved every success that has come his way.”
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An Anglo-Argentine Spaniard
Arteta is a proud Spaniard, but he has never been afraid to embrace other cultures. Rather than being a product entirely of his heritage, his attitude towards coaching and life is a consequence of his own experiences. Arsenal’s playing style, for example, is perfectly representative of their manager: it is underpinned by the possession-based principles he learnt at Barcelona, but bolstered by many traditional qualities of English football. There is plenty of Guardiola-style football within Arsenal’s team, but also a fair amount of David Moyes, his manager at Everton.
Arteta has lived in England for longer than he has ever lived in Spain. He was ready and willing to represent England during his playing career, and is proud of the connection he feels to this country.
He is also a huge admirer of Argentine culture. This is an affinity that dates back to his 18-month spell at PSG, when he became close with Argentina internationals Mauricio Pochettino and Gabriel Heinze (who is now one of his assistant coaches). At Rangers, he was good friends with Argentina legend Claudio Caniggia. Lorena, Arteta’s wife, was also born in Argentina.
Arteta with his wife, Lorena, who was born in Argentina - Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
The more relaxed South American approach to life balances out the disciplined Basque within him, and you can see this in his coaching methods. There is the sensible, regimented side that produces consistency and high-quality training, and then there is the more adventurous, passionate side that results in him declaring to the world that he is “on fire”, as he did earlier this season. The simple description of Arteta is that he is a Spaniard, but the more complicated reality is that he is part-Basque, part-English and part-Argentine.
‘It was like he was the manager... not Wenger’
It did not take long for the players and coaches at Arsenal to recognise Arteta’s qualities of adaptability, cultural curiosity and determination. After joining the club in August 2011, arriving after the nadir of the 8-2 defeat by Manchester United, Arteta quickly established himself as a leader and a powerful voice in the dressing room. It was clear to all his team-mates, some of whom would occasionally bristle at his demanding approach, that this midfielder would soon become a high-quality coach.
Former left-back Nacho Monreal, for example, recently revealed that Arteta invited the Spanish players to dinner during his playing days at Arsenal. When the guests arrived, Arteta was sitting in front of a match on television, taking notes on tactics. Theo Walcott, another former team-mate, once said that Arteta locked the Arsenal players in a room to address a bad run of form while manager Arsène Wenger waited outside. “It was like he was the manager,” Walcott said.
Although a player under Arsene Wenger, Arteta spoke like a coach - Stuart MacFarlane/Getty Images
Arteta knew then that he had what it took to become a manager. In an interview with the Arsenal Magazine in 2014, he said: “I would love to manage a squad of players and staff – I’ve got it inside me, it’s true, and I want to do it. I would like to prove myself, and prove my ideas about managing and encouraging people to do things in the way I believe is best.
“My philosophy will be clear. I will have everyone 120 per cent committed, that’s the first thing. If not, you don’t play for me. When it’s time to work it’s time to work, and when it’s time to have fun then I’m the first one to do it, but that commitment is vital.
“When I want the football to be expressive, entertaining. I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition. We have to dictate the game, we have to be the ones taking the initiative and we have to entertain the people coming to watch us. I’m 100 per cent convinced of those things, and I think I could do it.”
Learning from the master
The final step that Arteta needed to take, before he was ready to be a manager, was to experience life within a coaching staff. There was interest from Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur and an opportunity to stay at Arsenal, but following his retirement in 2016, Arteta chose to move to Manchester City as part of Guardiola’s backroom team.
Those three years with Guardiola shaped Arteta as a person and a coach. His proximity to Guardiola provided the ultimate learning experience. For a short while, they were even next-door neighbours in Manchester.
On the training pitches, some of Arteta’s most important work was with individual players. Wingers Leroy Sané and Raheem Sterling were beneficiaries of Arteta’s one-to-one coaching ability, as was midfielder Bernardo Silva. But Arteta was always learning from Guardiola, watching how he managed the wider group and studying how he convinced the squad to buy into his ideas.
As part of Guardiola’s coaching staff, Arteta gained the ultimate learning experience - Martin Rickett/PA
When Arteta left to take the Arsenal job in 2019, he was asked in his first press conference what he had learnt from working with Guardiola. He replied: “That you have to be ruthless.”
Over 6½ years at the Emirates Stadium, Arteta has certainly stuck to his word in that regard. Just ask the likes of Mesut Özil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: high-profile figures who were discarded by their manager.
And yet Arteta has also been innovative, brave and relentless in his pursuit of success. In defeating Guardiola in this season’s Premier League, he has now achieved one of his greatest goals. The Champions League, and victory over another former Barcelona team-mate, is now next on his list. Victory in Budapest would fully establish Arteta as one of the finest coaching minds of his generation, and mark the highest point so far on his remarkable journey in football.
Additional reporting by Dominic King and James Ducker
Source: “AOL Sports”
