Lessons of Barca for Arteta’s gang of young stars
Arsenal building for the future with kids
MIKEL ARTETA never made it as a player at Barcelona but he knows from first-hand experience how a functioning youth system can transform a club.
The Arsenal manager left his home in San Sebastian at the age of 15 to join Barcelona’s famous academy boarding school, giving him an insight into an unlikely group of teenagers who would revolutionise a club and turn it into the greatest in world football.
The great Barcelona team that dominated Europe from 2008 to 2015 was formed largely of youth-team players, many of whom lived in the reconverted 18th century farmhouse known as La Masia, where the club housed out-of-town teenage prodigies. Arteta said: ‘I was living in La Masia, it was a bedroom of eight and I had Pepe Reina, Victor Valdes, Andres Iniesta and Carles Puyol all in that bedroom.’
That is quite a line-up and between them they amassed a host of winners’ medals, including four World Cups, six European Championships, 21 La Ligas, 10 Copas del Rey, 10 Champions League, three FA Cups and one Scottish Premiership.
Barcelona revived the club by the means of a super effective youth system 15 years ago and, while Arsenal might not match the Xavi, Iniesta and Lionel Messi generation, something is stirring at Hale End, their own equivalent.
Last Tuesday’s 5-1 victory over Sunderland in the Carabao Cup was another manifestation of the promise with the hat-trick from Eddie Nketiah, 22, and the goal from 18-year-old Charlie Patino on his debut, a player who has been touted as one of the most-exciting yet. Most encouragingly for Arsenal, 2021 has been a breakthrough year for Bukayo Saka, 20, and Emile Smith Rowe, 21. The fact the pair have been assigned the prestigious squad numbers — No7 and No10 — is an indication of the longterm strategy.
Arteta said: ‘The reason we have expended a lot of effort and energy and have been very consistent with our decisions is because we have a huge opportunity with the young talent that we have at the club.
‘But that young talent has to be tough in the right way. How much I coach them — movement, tactical decision making — is less important than the environment that they grow up with. Now they have the perfect place to grow.
‘And that’s why they are growing, because they have the senior players doing what they have to do, they have the culture that is set, they have people that are willing to help them and a club that is fully supportive of them and willing to give them opportunities.’
The Arsenal youngsters are not at boarding school like Arteta. He once spoke about how Reina and his teammates would console him when he would cry at night through homesickness. But the sense of unity that comes from growing up together, which served Barcelona so well, can be replicated at Arsenal.
Arteta said: ‘What I learned at La Masia was that internally there was competition, as we all had the same aim to be first-team players and we could not all get there. But I also learned that within that competition you have to look after each other. Some of them are still my best friends and that is because you go through stuff together.’
At the moment, Saka and Smith Rowe represent small beginnings. Nketiah may be gone in the summer as his contract is up and his game time limited. If Patino can develop, Arsenal might have secured three academy players as a core of a team, still far off the likes of Chelsea, who regularly field four or five academy players in their first XI.
But it is still a radical change for Arsenal. They may have been long associated with playing youngsters but since the days of Liam Brady, David O’Leary, then David Rocastle, Tony Adams, Paul Merson and Paul Davis, the production line of home-grown players dried up.
There was Andy Cole, though he succeeded elsewhere, and the best of all in the Arsene Wenger generation, Ashley Cole. But the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, Wojciech
Szczesny and Robin van Persie were clever recruitments as teenagers from abroad.
The much-vaunted British core of Jack Wilshere Aaron Ramsey, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Carl Jenkinson and Kieran Gibbs were, Wilshere apart, again smart work by the scouting department. Wilshere is the only player since Cole who rose from Arsenal as a child to become an elite-level star.
Saka is now following that route, becoming a key player for England at last summer’s European Championship, an experience sullied by the appalling racial abuse he suffered on social media when he missed the fifth penalty in the final-shoot-out.
‘What I see is a young boy with incredible enthusiasm and passion for this club,’ said Arteta. ‘I see it in others, too. They are really willing to bring success and they are dealing with a lot of difficult situations in a great way. That shows the background, environment and families they have and how supportive the club have been.
‘I was worried with everything that happened in the summer with Saka but when I met him after the holiday period I realised he was going to cope with it well because his reaction was incredible. The support he had from everyone in football was something that gave him a big lift, reassurance and security and pushed him forward to say: “This is just part of the journey.”’
Saka may be the poster boy but Smith Rowe is but a step behind. Patino could be next. Arsenal may be on to something.
‘The purpose is to transform this club and be successful,’ said Arteta. ‘And the joy that that would mean is even more genuine because they have been raised all the way through our system and that’s again credit to all the people involved in our academy.’