66 2GM Friday July 31 2020 | the times
SportFootball
If you ever find yourself walking
around the tranquil streets of Antiguo
in northern Spain, the chances are that
you will cross paths with someone
wearing a Real Sociedad shirt.
Antiguo is located within the city of
San Sebastián, which is the home of La
Real, and is therefore packed with
many of their die-hard fans.
But do not be surprised if you happen
to come across an old Arsenal shirt in
Antiguo, or a 2002 Rangers jersey
either. There is a chance that you will
see the odd Everton tracksuit from
yesteryear too.
That may seem a little odd given that
Merseyside is more than 700 miles
away, but Everton have Mikel Arteta to
thank for their representation in this
part of the Basque country.
Arteta left San Sebastián 23 years ago
when he joined Barcelona’s fabled La
Masia academy. He went on to enjoy a
long and successful playing career, but
he has never forgotten his roots. When-
ever he signed for a new club, Arteta
would always do the same thing — send
boxes of new training gear and replica
jerseys from that club to Antiguoko, the
youth team in San Sebastián where he
began his career.
“Mikel is an example, an inspiration,”
Roberto Montiel, who coached Arteta
during his six-year spell with the club,
says.
“I have a lot of respect and admira-
tion for him because whenever he goes
to another club, he always sends shirts
and training gear.
“Twenty-four hours after he had
signed his first contract with Barcelona,
the kit arrived. It’s been the same
throughout his career.
“When he was in Everton, he sent
How Arteta’s style
was shaped by a
Basque boyhood
Arsenal’s head coach
was showing leadership
skills even as he was
progressing as a young
player, writes Paul Hirst
summer after a 21-year career in which
he won 13 Spain caps, said.
“He had a lot of talent. Technically he
was very good, and he finished very
well, but he didn’t just score goals, he
had a great final pass, and you could tell
he had leadership skills too.”
Montiel concurs on the last point.
“Mikel was a natural footballer and was
born to coach as well,” Montiel says.
“He was a leader on the pitch. His
team-mates respected him because he
was all about the group.
“One season I remember that Mikel
and another player, Yon Erquizia, were
tied at the top of the scoring charts with
47 goals each.
“In the last match of the season,
Mikel went through on goal, one on one
with the goalkeeper and he passed to
Erquizia, who scored. If Mikel had
scored that goal, he would have been
the top scorer in all age groups, but he
passed because he’s a selfless person.”
That will not come as a surprise to
those who have worked with Arteta
since. He is very much a team player.
When Leroy Sané struggled to settle
at Manchester City, Arteta, who was
Pep Guardiola’s assistant at the time,
took him under his wing. Whenever
any squad member wanted to stay
behind for extra training, Arteta stayed
with them.
At Arsenal, he has tried to develop
unity within the squad, sometimes
through humour. A wheel of fortune
has been installed which players spin
when they fall foul of the rules, such as
turning up late for a team meeting.
Depending on where the dial lands, the
guilty party can be punished with a fine
or a chore, such as cleaning staff
members’ cars.
Should Arsenal triumph in
tomorrow’s FA Cup final over Chelsea,
there will be few men as happy with the
result as Montiel.
“I am on holiday in Malaga at the
moment but I will try to find
somewhere to watch the game for sure,”
Montiel said.
“We’re all proud of Mikel and what
he has achieved in his career.”boxes of training tops to all the coaches
as well. I recently spoke to one of his
friends, and he told me that he will send
us some more Arsenal shirts. It’s those
little details that make him a great guy.”
At first sight Antiguoko’s ground,
Campo de Berio, is nothing special.
There is only one full-sized pitch, which
they share with other clubs, and a
handful of buildings where their many
age groups change.
Antiguoko is, however, the most
famous youth team in the Basque coun-
try. Arteta and the former Liverpool
and Real Madrid midfielder Xabi
Alonso, as well as the former Spain
internationals Aritz Aduriz and Andoni
Iraola, are among the many stars who
played for the club.
Antiguoko has therefore historically
been the subject of a tug of war between
the region’s two biggest clubs.
Last week, Antiguoko announced
they had signed a ten-year contract to
act as a feeder club for Athletic Bilbao,
thus ending a similar relationship they
had held with Real Sociedad.
“Athletic have struck at the heart of
San Sebastián, which has caused
anger,” Javi Beltrán, who writes about
football in the Basque country for
publications such as AS, says.
“Athletic have been looking to secure
this relationship with Antiguoko for
about 15 years and you can see why
because they have produced elite foot-
ballers.”
Every Antiguoko player who goes on
to play professionally in Spain has their
shirt framed and hung up on a wall in
the clubhouse. Arteta’s Barcelona shirt
sits alongside a Real Madrid jersey
signed by Alonso, his close friend and
Antiguoko midfield partner for six
years.
Alonso had a more gilded
professional career than Arteta, who
played for the club from 9 to 15, but the
latter was the star at Antiguoko even
though he was always a year younger
than his team-mates.
“He [Arteta] played in the
mediapunta [No 10] role and he had
everything,” Aduriz, who retired thisDarkness is falling over old Upton Park.
Harry Redknapp, the West Ham
United manager, leaves his office and
grimaces into the horizontal rain. He
spots a figure bludgeoning balls into the
back of the net at the far end of the
windswept pitch. He sees the grounds-
gested Scott Canham had been a
better prospect. Redknapp was
riled enough to opine: “I did not
want to say this in front of
him but he will go right
to the very top.”
Looking back at that
night now, he says: “I
just told them what he
was and what he was
going to be. When
someone has that atti-
tude and wants it so
badly he was always
going to be a success.
“Frank would go home
and run around the
streets. A lot of young
players, all they’re bother-
ed about is the big car and
fancy watch. Frank just
wanted to be a footballer.
He was old school. He
trained like a lunatic.”
If he is a chip off the old
block you might say his
gene pool was on show‘Frank has always had doubters –
he’s going to be a great manager’
man and says: “Someone’s climbed over
the fence.” The man shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says. “That’s young Frank.”
That snapshot from the past meets
the future tomorrow when Frank Lam-
pard, a rookie top-flight manager, leads
out Chelsea in the FA Cup final against
Arsenal. He could become the first
English manager to lift the trophy since
his Uncle Harry did so with Ports-
mouth in 2008.
Fourth place and an FA Cup would be
an excellent haul from Lampard’s first
season in charge of Chelsea, which
started with a transfer embargo and
plenty of cynicism about his route to
the top. Along the way the 42-year-oldhas shown that he will not be intimidat-
ed by more esteemed managers such as
Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp and Leeds
United’s Marcelo Bielsa, who both
moved into his crosshairs when he per-
ceived lines had been crossed.
His critics cry nepotism and say
there are asterisks next to the success as
well as in the touchline tirades, but Red-
knapp is incredulous.
“Only idiots would say that,” he says.
“He did not become an £11 million
player at Chelsea because he was a bad
player at West Ham. Frank does not
need to show he can stand up to any-
one. His playing career was far better
than Jürgen Klopp’s. I love Klopp butthese things have
always happened. I
never got involved
because I had Joe Jor-
dan to sort them out.
You shake hands and
have a drink.”
Redknapp, 73, then
recounts the formative
story of a fans’ forum at
West Ham in 1996
when a punter decried
the 18-year-old Lam-
pard’s ability and sug-Harry Redknapp gave
his nephew a leg up but
tells Rick Broadbent
that Lampard more
than deserves his shot
Redknapp, left, backed
Lampard from the start