I’ve been speaking to Arteta. I just want to learn
CESC FABREGAS did it all as a player. Now he hopes his chats with Mikel and Pep will help him hit the heights in the dugout. Mail Sport joins him on his first steps in Italy
Cesc Fabregas scaled the very top of football’s summit as a player. He now finds himself at the foot of that mountain once more, preparing to tackle the game as a coach.
The 36-year- old has swapped his boots for tactics boards, 60,000-seat stadiums for cramped academy grounds, two- hour training sessions for a full-time, full- on job. still, he would not have it any other way.
Fabregas greets Mail Sport at the Konami Youth Development centre in Milan — home to Inter’s youth academy. His como Primavera side, an Under 19 team in Italy’s second tier of youth football, are playing the promising talent of one of europe’s biggest clubs in a pre-season friendly on a balmy august afternoon.
It is a far cry from the arenas Fabregas became accustomed to but it is a change he is relishing.
‘The biggest difference is that before you were told what to do, and now I have to be the one organising everything, setting up and analysing,’ he says. ‘It’s a 24/7 job. It’s non-stop — on the phone, on video calls, in meetings.’
Three weeks in, the long hours show no sign of extinguishing his passion. Prowling the touchline, the former arsenal, chelsea and barcelona midfielder cuts an animated figure, invoking images of his former tutors arsene Wenger, antonio conte and Pep guardiola.
He is vocal and hands-on with his players, pulling his left back to one side to relay instructions, and booms his commands to the far touchline throughout the 90 minutes.
It is all captured by a film crew who are following Fabregas, documenting his first footsteps in the world of management. He appears to be revelling in his new role — and his players are too.
‘ For me the most important thing is that they are buying into my idea,’ he says, ‘ that I can convince them what we are trying to do is the right way. Working with the young players is a real pleasure.
‘It’s also an interesting challenge for me and a new thing because at their age I was already in the arsenal first team. and I never went through this process from 16 to 18 that they used to say was a really important process. It’s good to see and work with players who are going through it.’
What Fabregas was exposed to during his career was a wealth of knowledge handed down from some of the game’s most notable tacticians. He would collect these nuggets in a notebook — what today he describes as his ‘ trophy’ — cultivated from years of harvesting hints and tips from the very best.
He has had messages of support from his former mentors and team-mates ahead of this latest step — including from gunners manager Mikel arteta and sporting director edu.
The pair are driving change at the emirates and Fabregas is a keen observer, given the parallels with his current club.
‘I had chats with Mikel, also with edu,’ he says. ‘That’s always a positive thing because what they are trying to build with young players, a new era into the club, it’s what we are kind of trying to do also in como.
‘We are probably the youngest team in the league so it’s also interesting to hear their advice on what they are trying to build and what we are trying to build.
‘ There is always room for improvement and for learning.’
Fabregas’ thirst for knowledge is clear. Last season he threw himself into his coaching preparation, studying towards his UeFa a Licence while juggling the dying embers of his playing career with como in serie b. It was a much-needed distraction as his desire to play dwindled.
‘The training sessions, I wasn’t enjoying them any more and I always said the day I wake up and I don’t feel the same passion in the session, when I don’t enjoy the football, it was time to try something else,’ he says. ‘but I’m blessed and happy that I found my passion very quickly.’
Fabregas’s standing in the game brings with it a heightened sense of expectation and the action on the pitch as his como side play only serves to fuel it.
a superb performance has seen them blow away Inter, top-flight opposition, with a comfortable 3-1 win. It is a display that has matched the passion and flair shown by the World cup winner in his technical area. among his backroom staff there is already consensus that this is a man destined for big things. Fabregas says that is very much his aim.
‘I want to go to the very top. That’s my goal,’ he says. ‘every time I do something I do it with a lot of heart, great mentality and this will never change. I lost a bit of that fire inside me in the last days of my career. Now, when I’m on the bench, I feel things that I remember when I was young.
‘everything is back. all my fire, everything that goes around the coaching side is bringing me feelings that I had lost in the last two years, and that makes me the happiest.’
The ascent has begun.