Mikel Arteta revealed he called Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola on the morning of Arsenal’s Champions League victory over Real Madrid. The Gunners earned an impressive 2-1 victory over the La Liga giants to set up a semi-final clash against Paris Saint-Germain.
Goals from Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli either side of a strike from Real’s Vinicius Jr, confirmed a 5-1 aggregrate scoreline as the north London side comfortably navigated their way into the final four of Europe’s premier competition. After a disappointing Premier League title race, European success will be firmly on Arsenal’s mind.
It was clear from the outset of Wednesday, that a significant moment was on the horizon for Arteta. The Spaniard was in a reflective mood and pondered on the significance of Guardiola upon his career ahead of contacting a coaching mentor.
Arteta worked under the Catalan’s tutelage for four years at the Etihad Stadium before taking on the top job at Arsenal. Guardiola’s role in Arteta’s career is deemed noteworthy by the 43-year-old.
He said: “I called him this morning. Because if I am here, it is thanks to him to a great extent.
“He has been a big inspiration to me. I lived four amazing years with him and I will always be grateful to him. Without him, I wouldn’t be here.”
The Bernabeu victory provided a landmark moment of Arteta’s Arsenal career. The former midfielder was asked if he’d ever been prouder of his players.
“Probably not,” he replied. “Not only because we’re in the semi-final for the third time in our history, but also for the manner and the way we did it, with the circumstances, the amount of injuries that we had.
“I think overall, I think it shows the character of this team, of this club, and it’s a night to be very proud of. What this shows is that the feeling that we have is a reality.
“And the feeling that I had before the tie, with what the players were transmitting and how prepared I could feel they were, was that we are ready to compete against anybody. Now, we have to continue to do that because I think we have some momentum.”
Arteta is hopeful this season can see his team go from challengers to winners. “It’s certainly another massive step,” he said.
“Where we finished last year and the way we’re doing it this year, the teams with their eyes on us and the competition, it’s incredible. Big credit to [Madrid}, it was my first time as a coach in that dugout and today I realised after three minutes in this stadium, anything is possible.
“They are specialists of creating such chaos and belief, and it’s very difficult to understand really what’s going on in the game and have certain certainty about how we controlled it. I think they showed a lot of maturity.”
Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Sky has slashed the price of its Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle in an unbeatable new deal that saves £192 and includes 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
