'Innovator' Arteta talks Champions League, Arsenal, and role models
Mikel Arteta reveals the impact Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola have had on his career so far.
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00:00 You have to embrace and hack fear.
00:02 And when that happens, then there are no limits.
00:06 This is Mikel Arteta, and this is Outside the Box.
00:12 What do we have here?
00:21 OK, chess.
00:22 Apparently, the players say you can see a strategy like no one else.
00:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:30 One of the toughest things as a manager, I think,
00:34 is to simplify all the ideas and concepts that we had
00:37 and put it together in a very visual and simplified way.
00:40 I like to innovate.
00:41 I like to think out of the box.
00:42 And I like to be creative as well.
00:45 Things take time, you know?
00:47 And if you rush them and you force them, they don't work.
00:50 It's a real art in management.
00:53 Sometimes you just have to put the brake down a little bit
00:55 to have to go faster.
00:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:59 My UEFA Champions League debut was in Milan.
01:01 The first moment is being in that tunnel,
01:04 just waiting for the two teams to come out.
01:06 A huge challenge for me to see what I was at 17, 18 years old.
01:10 And then I moved to Rangers, and we played the UEFA Champions
01:13 League there as well.
01:14 I just fall in love with that stadium, with that energy,
01:16 with that passion.
01:19 What I must say in the Champions League is goosebumps,
01:23 it's excitement.
01:24 The format is different, and especially when you play
01:27 knockout stages, you are in or you are out.
01:31 The opportunity Arsene gave me to be part of this football
01:33 club as a player, it was something
01:35 that I dreamed many, many, many times in my football career.
01:41 And then one day he decided to make me captain,
01:43 and that helped me.
01:44 And he was a key figure developing my leadership skills.
01:47 The way he trusted me, the way he communicated with me.
01:50 Arsene's impact in my career has been tremendous.
01:54 The first time that I started to think like a manager,
01:57 it was when I went to Barcelona in La Masia in the academy.
02:01 And it made me really curious about, OK,
02:03 why things happen in the game.
02:05 What sequences we were looking for,
02:07 you know, why things weren't happening,
02:09 how we could change certain things to make it
02:10 more difficult to the opponent.
02:13 And then when I got injured at Everton, and I did my ACL,
02:17 and I was out for a while, suddenly
02:19 that clicked again, and things happened for a reason.
02:22 And Pep started to contact me on that period,
02:25 and he wanted me to be part of his coaching staff.
02:28 I've known him since I was 15 years old,
02:35 and we see the game in a really similar way,
02:38 because we've been educated in the same academy.
02:40 For me, Pep is a genius.
02:43 But he works as hard as has ever seen anybody work.
02:47 And that's the secret, the discipline, the consistency
02:49 that he has.
02:50 When we went through the process,
02:54 and I was one of the candidates that Arsenal had in the list
02:57 to become the new manager, I had a strong belief
02:59 that I was going to impact the club and the team
03:01 in a really strong way.
03:02 At the same time, you have fears.
03:05 I've been preparing for that for many years.
03:07 I dreamed about it.
03:08 Yeah, one of the happiest days of my life.
03:10 Communication, we always say, is one of the most important things,
03:18 because at the end, we have to connect.
03:21 You need to be able to do it in a way that is clear,
03:24 and you can show your emotions, your ideas, your belief,
03:27 to be able to put yourself in the other person's shoes.
03:30 I think that's a big quality to have.
03:34 But data is becoming more and more important.
03:36 I use data a lot to understand certain concepts of the game,
03:40 and I try to amplify performance.
03:42 I love possession, when it's in the right area
03:45 with the right purpose.
03:46 I want my team to have the ball to attack as much as possible,
03:48 to be very direct to goal, and we can attack in two passes,
03:52 don't use 22.
03:53 From day one in my Migeria career arsenal to now,
04:00 so the one thing that I don't know,
04:02 probably the complexity of the job,
04:05 and understanding that everything is linked,
04:07 that everything is important, but everything is not urgent.
04:12 A lot of times, we are looking for success, success, success,
04:15 and I think we have to be more focused on trying to really
04:18 understand what makes us happy.
04:20 What do you want to do in your life,
04:22 and who do you want to do it with?