THE CHOSEN ONE
The son of a Brazilian World Cup winner, he is Pep’s favourite player ...now Thiago is desperate to put right Bayern’s Champions League failings — as if Arsene Wenger needed any more trouble!
WHEN your father is a World Cup winner, you would think it would be hard to make your mark. And when Brazilian superstars Romario and Bebeto were casual visitors to your childhood home, you might think the prospect of matching them a little overwhelming.
Thiago Alcantara, son of Brazil midfielder Mazinho, never quite saw it that way. Perched on a stool at Bayern Munich’s famous Sabener Strasse training ground as he reflects on his childhood in nearperfect English, despite the fact he has never lived in the UK, it is easy to see how he became Pep Guardiola’s favourite player; and why Arsenal might wish to pay him extra attention at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday.
‘Thiago oder nichts’ were among Guardiola’s first ever words in German when he took over at Bayern Munich in 2013. By which he meant that he wanted the club to sign Thiago from Barcelona and, if they couldn’t get him, they needn’t bother with anyone else.
At the time David Moyes was also trying to persuade the midfielder to come to Manchester United, but in reality, once his mentor Guardiola called, there was little doubt about his final destination.
And in his own mind it seems he was always on a journey to become not just a professional footballer but one of the finest midfielders in the world. Not many get to hang out with the likes of Romario and Bebeto as a child. ‘For me it was completely normal,’ says 25-year-old Thiago, whose father was a key part of the 1994 World Cup-winning team.
‘I saw myself as a football player since I was very young. In my head they were my rivals. You know, “I want to be better than you”. Most of the kids wanted to take pictures with them. I didn’t want that. I wanted to see what they could do and I wanted to do better than them.’
That said, he just laughs when asked what he does better than Romario. ‘In scoring goals that would be impossible!’ he says. ‘He was the best in the area.’
Safe to say, however, that Romario probably didn’t track back as much as Thiago, nor read the midfield as well.
The influences around him were exceptional. ‘My dad was a fantastic professional and that’s not just about what he did on the field,’ he says. ‘It’s about what he did off the field. It’s about what he did with his family. He took care of his body. For me that’s the main point. When I used to watch his training I’d say, “OK, I can do this, I can do that”.
‘In my head I could do everything I saw. It wasn’t a barrier for me. More important for me was the behaviour of a professional, a World Cup winner off the pitch. How good he was with his friends, with his team-mates. That’s very important.’
That work ethic extended beyond the football world. Thiago was born in Italy, lived for a while in Brazil and then moved to Vigo in Spain, which accounts for his Spanish nationality. ‘I feel Spanish, all my friends were Spanish, my wife is Spanish . . . I was playing my whole life in Spain.’ His father played for Celta Vigo and then the family settled there and Thiago went to a bilingual school, which accounts for the English. Many of his friends were also Dutch or Danish students on school exchanges and the lingua franca was English, so he was being prepared both academically as well as on the pitch. But at some stage he and his younger brother, Rafinha, who stayed at Barcelona, must have felt the pressure of being Mazinho’s children? ‘No. In the end I always played football for fun but with responsibility. It’s still the same. It’s something that is there for fun, but with responsibility as well. When we were children me and my brother, were “the sons of Mazinho”. And with the years, we became Rafinha and Thiago.’
As a teenager he moved to Barcelona’s world famous La Masia, the farmhouse next to the Nou Camp which used to house the out-of-town youth-team players and where Guardiola, Andres Iniesta and Carles Puyol lived and were schooled. ‘Now it’s like a five-star hotel!’ he says of the new facilities youngsters enjoy at Barca’s modern training ground. ‘At that time we were in a stone house which we have near the stadium or there were some rooms in the stadium . . . ’
As such, he is immersed in the Guardiola way. Maybe his former manager saw something of himself in him, for Thiago can play the pivot in midfield, though he can also play a more attacking role, as he has done in Carlo Ancelotti’s 4-3-3 for Bayern. But there was certainly a feeling that Guardiola loved him more than Barca did. The club didn’t seem to fight hard to keep him, though they would surely want him back now.
‘It was a very difficult decision. For anyone who comes through La Masia, through that youth system, it would be as well. You don’t want to
leave, you just want to join the first team and have success. You can play football in Bayern, in Barcelona, in Manchester, in London, wherever. In the end, it’s football and you want to play with the best. It’s not just about how you feel, or your self-confidence, but how other people feel about you. Pep trusted me and I felt that trust. He won a lot of things and I learned a lot from him during his Barcelona period.’
Certainly he has been imbued with all the key lessons about possession football and he has always played in teams who dominate the game. Last week against Wolfsburg, Bayern overwhelmed their opponents on the ball but still almost conceded a late equaliser, which in some might provoke a degree of doubt regarding the philosophy.
‘It’s not about feeling insecure,’ he says. ‘It’s football. Football is the only sport in the world in which you can play s*** and win. It’s not about statistics in the end. You can be in the area 10 times and shooting and you don’t score. And they come suddenly with one per cent of possession, they win a corner and bang. It’s football. If you play basketball, if you play golf, you will not win. In football it can happen. It happens suddenly in a moment of magic, one player they shoot from midfield . . . ’
Thiago might not have surpassed his father in one respect — he was too young to be part of the 2010 Spain World Cup winning squad — but otherwise his trophy cabinet is full to overflowing at the age of 25. He has four Spanish titles to his name, three Bundesliga titles, one Copa del Rey, two German Cups and two European Under-21 titles, in one of which he was player of the tournament after scoring a hat-trick in the final. He even has a Champions League medal, having sat on the bench at Wembley when Barcelona overwhelmed Manchester United in 2011. But, with Bayern approaching the latter stages of the Champions League, that medal isn’t enough.
‘At that moment I had been with the team for four months and you think, “OK, now I’m on the bench”. And then you say, “OK, now some minutes.” And then it’s, “OK, now I want some more minutes”. It was an amazing experience to be in a Champions League final, to win it. At the same time, the way I am, I want to feel that it’s mine. And I didn’t feel that it’s mine because I didn’t play.’
Arsenal might take some renewed hope, despite their traditional exit at this stage to Bayern. Bayern have not resumed 2017 after their winter break as smoothly as they ended 2016, though they have still won four and drawn one. There is simmering tension over the decision of club legend Philipp Lahm to quit this summer, a move which was announced without the club being forewarned. And club president Uli Hoeness has called Douglas Costa ‘desperate’ over his hints that he might move to England or Spain.
But this is Bayern and Arsenal are Arsenal. Bayern have knocked Arsenal out twice since 2013 at this stage and beat them 5-1 at home last season, when Thiago was imperious. So it’s hard to see a shock, though Thiago insists otherwise: ‘Each year is a different year. But we will be focused to beat them and to qualify for the next stage, that’s all.’
He knows Alexis Sanchez well from his Barca days and balks at the idea that the Chilean might have found his perfect pitch in England. ‘It’s not about how he fits in the Premier League. He’s good. It’s just because he’s good. And here in Germany, in England, in Spain, he’s good. He would do great here or everywhere. He’s a great player with a lot of technique and an instinct for goal. And all the time he was so competitive. He’s a guy who wants football, who lives football, who breathes football. And he wants to win like we want to win.’
Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin was a couple of years below him in the youth system but they got to know each other well in the summer at Euro 2016 with the Spain squad. ‘He was always really fast,’ Thiago says.
For Bayern, though, the Champions League seems a more realistic odyssey than for Arsenal. Bayern last won under Jupp Heynckes in 2013 and the expectation was that Guardiola would match that achievement. Instead there were three semi-final exits, which remain a sore point.
‘Yes, but tell me how many teams make three times in the semi-final in a row,’ says Thiago. ‘Now we are in the round of 16 and look at the teams you have there. (We are) competing with the best players in the world, the best clubs in the world, and at the end, it is about small details. In the end, it’s not about luck. Luck is something you find, or you go for it. It’s about small details. And each time it was Atletico Madrid, or Barcelona, or Real Madrid who deserved to be in the final. We are doing our best, more and more every year to reach it.
‘You can see that things are going in a good way because we are going three times in the semi-final. Just one more step. We have to have this calm and at the same time have this type of aggression to be in the final.’ He pauses. ‘But in the end let’s talk about Arsenal, we look forward to that. We’ll see.’