Mikel Arteta reveals how Pep Guardiola used to call him for advice
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has revealed how Pep Guardiola used to call him for advice on English teams during his time at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Arteta reckons that he was willing to do everything for Manchester City’s current manager.
He further stated Guardiola asked for advice for big Champions League clashes with the English teams.
The Spanish professional football manager worked with Guardiola at Manchester City as his assistant coach for a whole three years before taking the coaching reigns at the Gunners in 2019.
Arteta went on to say that Guardiola wanted him to be his right-hand man since 2012 but declined as he told him that he was still enjoying playing.
In recent weeks, Arteta made headlines on how Moroccan national team head coach Walid Regragui had learnt some tactical insight from him when the North African side reached the historic FIFA World Cup semifinals.
MIKEL ARTETA SPEAKS…
“I decided at 28 to start doing my coaching badges,” Arteta told Sky Sports, as quoted by TalkSport.
“I started doing it when I was at Arsenal, Arsene [Wenger] was very supportive of it, and I started to really enjoy that process.
“When I was 30, I remember that Pep made the first call to say, ‘I might be coming to England. Would you become my assistant?’.
“I said: ‘I’m still playing! It’s still too early’.
“But that gave me more motivation to understand that whenever I decided to stop playing, I wanted to start coaching.”
WHEN FIRST MIKEL ARTETA MET PEP GUARDIOLA
Arteta even recalled vividly that he first met Guardiola in the late 1990s at the age of 15 when he was still at Barca’s academy.
“We met when I was 15, he was my idol,” explained Arteta.
“He was the one to try to emulate if I wanted to be a first-team player at Barcelona, and we built that relationship from there.
“And then it was weird because when I was still playing, and he was the Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager, he used to call me asking for advice about English teams.
“One day, he was very clear to me, ‘the day that I am in England, I have a dream to do what I did in Barcelona in this league where everybody says that it is impossible to do, and I would like your help and support and experience to help me to achieve that dream.’ So that was it.”
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