Exclusive: ‘I knew he was going to change our world’ – Mikel Arteta reveals which transfer he got most excited about

We sat down with Premier League boss and official Soccer Manager 2024 ambassador Mikel Arteta, who details what it is like to be a player undergoing a high-profile transfer and what it is like to be in charge of signing players nowadays.

It doesn’t take Mikel Arteta long to name the transfer that excited him the most during his playing days. “Santi Cazorla,” he immediately says with a smile.

“I knew that he was going to change our world. A special player.”

Arteta, of course, now sits on the other side of the table when it comes to the crazy world of football transfers. He is no longer on the outside looking in, waiting to hear what player will be coming in as a new team-mate for the season. The Spaniard is now at the business end of the deals, doing all he can to help land the new faces he believes will take his squad to a new level as they chase football’s highest honours.

And he admits that in just a short space of time, the anatomy of how a transfer is done has changed beyond all recognition. “It’s very different,” says Arteta, official brand ambassador for Soccer Manager.

“Now players are surrounded by many more people, it’s much more professional. There are lawyers involved, advisors involved, player care involved. Sometimes there is more than one agent.

“I think every club will be different. Obviously the way we work here, everything starts with ownership and they have been extremely supportive.

“Then it’s the board, then Edu and I on the sporting decisions. We share all the responsibility to make them [happen]. It’s really good.”

Arteta’s first taste of how transfers work came back in 2001 when he made the surprise move from Barcelona B, where he had progressed through from the club’s famous La Masia academy, to Paris Saint-Germain.

Luis Fernandez was in charge of the French outfit at the time, having previously spent four years in charge of Athletic Bilbao. The former France international had the likes of Laurent Robert, Jay-Jay Okocha and Nicolas Anelka in his squad, but he had seen enough of Arteta to convince him the young midfielder would be a good addition.

So he set the wheels in motion, and for the teenage Arteta, everything soon turned into a blur. “It was crazy,” he recalls. “I was in Barcelona living with my mum. I finished training with the Barca B team and suddenly I get a phone call saying Luis Fernandez wants to speak to you. “I said ‘what?”.

“I pick up the phone and he says, ‘you come here tonight. I tried to sign you to Atletico Bilbao when I was there, I want you in the team and you are going to play for me’. I was like, ‘really?’

“I went straight away on the internet and was looking at the team they had which was full of stars and I was like ‘OK, let’s go for it’.

“So we packed our bags that afternoon, took a plane that evening and we went to Paris. And that was it. I didn’t know what to expect, I’d never played a professional game and was a total unknown to everybody.”

Transfer stories now dominate the news cycle in football, even when the transfer window is closed. Fans around the world are captivated by reports about who their club might sign next, with almost every detail of the mega-money deals being dissected in the papers and on the internet.

For someone like Arteta, who is known for liking to keep things close to his chest, that can be frustrating – especially when competition for the world’s best players is so fierce. But it’s something he does understand as he can remember the excitement that he felt growing up as a Barcelona fan hearing who would be the next superstar to grace the Camp Nou.

“The first one was Romario,” he says. “When Barcelona signed Romario from PSV I was looking at videos of him and it was incredible.

“Then it was Ronaldo and Rivaldo. They were the first three top, top signings that I remember. It was incredible, trying to find where the pre-games were going to be so I could watch them. It was great.”

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