How Arteta and Xabi Alonso went from best friends as kids to footy’s top managers, as coach says Arsenal boss was BETTER
THEY are the two hottest young bosses in Europe — the schoolboy soulmates standing on the verge of history.
A pair of amigos whose footballing path began as kickabout pals on the beaches of San Sebastian and has every chance of ending in title-winning triumph.
In North London, Mikel Arteta is driving Arsenal ever closer to being crowned kings of the Premier League after a two-decade drought.
And nearly 400 miles away, Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen could become Bundesliga champions for the first time on Sunday.
It is a remarkable story for the Basque buddies and the tiny Spanish youth club Antiguoko, where they formed the midfield heartbeat as ten-year-olds.
And their former coach, Roberto Montiel, is bursting with pride over his two prize graduates.
Montiel, now vice-president of the amateur club with no adult team, said: “Mikel always played ahead of his age group and showed a lot of maturity despite being a little boy. Right away, we knew he could make it at a professional level.
“He’s the best player I have ever seen at Antiguoko, better even than Alonso, and I think he had the idea of being a coach a long time before he hung up his boots.
“Arteta would watch me coach some of the teams and afterwards bombard me with ideas and suggestions of how to change things around!
“He was still only young but I could see he was engineering the idea of coaching.
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“I would laugh because he’d tell me where my team was failing and where I had to use the scalpel to make changes!”
While Arteta’s destiny seemed predestined, it was not as immediately obvious with Alonso.
Montiel added: “Xabi was a small lad, who didn’t bulk up until the Under-17s.
“But he organised play very well and was a commanding presence without being very bossy.
“He was a bit introverted but transformed when on the pitch. He was never someone who needed to shout a lot — a few words was all it took.
“But he was always highly respected and when Xabi said something, everyone respected it.”
Montiel remains close to both Antiguoko’s star pupils.
And the sell-on windfall from Alonso’s sale to Liverpool from Real Sociedad in 2004 paid for a new clubhouse.
Montiel reckons there is something unique about the club that also produced Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola.
He said: “I think it’s because of the demands we put on them as kids, from a very young age.
“It is a culture where they never surrender — Antiguoko is a school of life.”