Mikel Arteta, Xabi Alonso and Andoni Iraola started their paths to the top at Antiguoko: ‘If I really think about it, it’s absolutely crazy’

Between a row of white apartment buildings and an artificial pitch set into the green hills of Berio in San Sebastian that Antiguoko now call home, there is a strip of land where Mikel Arteta, Xabi Alonso and Andoni Iraola learned their craft.

“The centre circle was just over there,” says Roberto Montiel, the club’s long-serving coach and vice-president, as he takes a seat in what is now a public park. He rubs his thumb and forefinger together as he recalls the texture of the old playing surface.

“The pitch wasn’t like the new one up there. It was smaller and made of small stones, like gravel. The balls weren’t like the ones now either. When they got wet, they became heavy. You would slip and slide, and if you fell, you’d end up with a terrible scrape.”

The games played here by this neighbourhood club’s celebrated alumni, two of whom meet as managers when Arsenal face Chelsea on Sky Sports on Sunday, are the stuff of local legend.

“Even then you could see their vision for the game,” adds Montiel.

“On this pitch made of gravel, trying to pass those balls when it was raining, with puddles all over the place, with everything getting dirty. Honestly, it was something special to watch. The teams from those ’81 and ’82 generations were incredible.”

Arteta and Iraola played in the latter age group; Alonso the former. “It was like a national team of the best players in the area and it made us an unbeatable team,” says Alvaro Parra, a former Antiguoko team-mate and close friend of Arteta’s.

“I remember games against Real Sociedad that were so easy. They would come to play us and we would beat them 5-0. Athletic Club would come and we would beat them as well. We won all the leagues. The team became known as the Basque Dream Team.”

The club continues to turn out talent. Over at their offices, a mile further into town, near Ondarreta beach, Montiel jokes that they need more wall space to continue displaying signed shirts from a list of top-division graduates that now runs to more than 40 names.

Those of Arteta, Alonso and Iraola hold pride of place.

Their former colleagues are used to their success. But it remains a source of wonder, even to them, that these three Antiguoko players, born within 15 miles of each other, only seven months apart, in Gipuzkoa, the smallest province in Spain, have come this far.

“If I really think about it, it’s absolutely crazy that our three friends are managing these Premier League teams,” says Parra. “Sometimes I turn on the TV and say, ‘Oh, it’s Mikel! Oh, it’s Xabi! What’s happened here?'” adds Mikel Yanguas, another old team-mate.

Arteta: ‘He was like a predator on the pitch’

Arteta was the pick of them growing up. “He had something different,” says Yanguas, who played as a striker. “He was small but very technical and very clever. He played right behind me and he was always thinking about his next pass. I just needed to run.”

Yanguas, who later moved to Barcelona’s La Masia academy with Arteta, jokes that his old team-mate made him look better than he was. Parra, a former centre-back, feels similarly. “I just had to pass the ball to Mikel Arteta. Mikel Arteta to Yanguas. Goal.”

Montiel is full of stories, many of them set on the old gravel pitch, and many of which highlight Arteta’s intelligence, even as a boy. “The one I like to tell, and the one that stays with me most, shows that he was a player who was so alert to everything,” he says.

“It was right over there, in midfield. The referee blew for a drop ball, and just as he let it bounce, Arteta flicked it away with the outside of his boot and hit a long pass across the pitch for a team-mate who was on his own to score – and that was against Real Sociedad.”

There was an edge to Arteta too – even when playing up a year with Alonso. “He had a real competitive look about him,” adds Montiel.

“He was super-attentive to everything you said. He showed an interest in everything. And then, when he went on the pitch, he was a predator. And that was against players a year older. I don’t even need to tell you what he was like against players of his own age.”

Arteta’s competitiveness is one of his defining qualities as a manager. It was evident off the pitch as well as on it growing up.

Montiel remembers Arteta sliding, Jurgen Klinsmann-style, down the hallway of his house in Liverpool after beating him at PlayStation during a visit while he was at Everton.

“Whatever game you played with him, you would always lose,” adds Parra. “If you played PlayStation, you would lose. If you played ping pong, you would lose. He was very, very competitive. If you beat him at anything, he would get angry and go home.”

Parra chuckles as he utters the last line. He and Arteta were otherwise inseparable, their friendship, and holidays together, continuing even after his career took him abroad.

“After the year he made his debut with Paris Saint-Germain, he called me and said, ‘Alvaro, pack your suitcase, we’re going to Marbella.'” Parra has no photographs of that trip, lamentably. But he reaches for his phone and flicks through a selection of others.

Parra cherishes the memories. But Arteta, he stresses, was also organised and disciplined, in all aspects of his life, including his studies. “His parents instilled that in him.”

Those qualities helped when he made the move to Barcelona aged only 15. Yanguas, although similarly talented according to those who first spotted him playing on La Concha beach with Arteta, never settled and returned home the following year.

“Mikel had a better capacity to adapt,” he says. “He was quickly speaking to the other people at La Masia. I think he demonstrated that in other countries too, in France, in Scotland, in England. He always had the ability to adapt to any environment.”

Iraola: ‘A great team-mate and quiet leader’

Back in Berio, we have moved up the slope from the site of Antiguoko’s old pitch to their new one, where an U16s team are being put through their paces under the midday sun.

“This is a very good group,” says Montiel, before gesturing towards a slight figure in central midfield who stands out for his technical quality. “He had an offer from Real Sociedad but preferred to stay with us,” he adds, with more than a hint of pride.

Real Sociedad and Athletic are signing Antiguoko players at ever-younger ages, Montiel says. But for some, the education on offer at Antiguoko is reason to stay. The coach overseeing this session, Iñigo Iraola, cousin of Andoni, is certainly from good footballing stock.

Like the older Iraola, who returned to Antiguoko as a coach while studying for his badges following his playing career, Iñigo came through the club’s youth ranks as a player.

“The first game I ever watched was here in Berio, when Andoni came back with Athletic Club as an U18,” he says. “From then on I always saw him as a role model and an example to follow.”

He remembers Andoni taking him to buy his first pair of football boots. “They were Adidas boots,” he says, smiling. “I went to buy them with him on my birthday here in San Sebastian. He was already playing for Athletic, so it was special for me to go with him.”

Iraola is remembered differently to Arteta as a boy at Antiguoko.

“Mikel was captain of the team, he took responsibility,” says Parra. “Andoni was more introverted, but at the same time he had incredible ability, and even if he was quieter, he was always a fun and polite guy, a great team-mate, and popular in the group.”

“He was one of my favourites,” adds Montiel. “Playing out wide, he didn’t get as many touches as those in the centre, but every time he got to the byline, he would beat two or three players, make a pass and we’d score. He could work wonders with the ball.”

He had the same competitive streak as Arteta. And although he was more reserved, as Parra explains, he had his moments.

“In our team, he played as a right winger and had a really important role,” says Parra. “But when he went to Athletic, their manager Ernesto Valverde moved him to full-back.

“At first, he didn’t like it at all. He even got angry, asking, ‘Why are you putting me in defence?’ But Valverde knew he was going to be an incredible full-back because he had the quality and the ability to take on players and get all the way up the pitch.”

Iraola’s leadership abilities emerged later, first as captain of Athletic, where he ended up making 510 appearances, then as a manager.

“One thing I really admire about Andoni is the kind of leader he is,” says his cousin. “He isn’t going to raise his voice above everyone else. He’s a quieter, understated kind of leader who has more of an impact through the example he sets his players every day.”

Alonso: ‘It took him a while to grow’

Ignacio Azpilicueta likes to joke that he had the best view in football.

As the central defender who occupied the space directly behind Alonso at Antiguoko, he enjoyed a front-row seat as his teenaged team-mate began to find his passing range.

“He played as the midfield pivot right in front of me, so I had the privilege of seeing Xabi’s best passes from my position, right at the point when he developed the physical power and ball-striking ability that he went on to show for so many years.”

Alonso had always been a good player. “He won the ball back a lot, played with two feet, and all of his passes were good,” says Montiel. Azpilicueta recalls friends commenting on Alonso’s ability during intra-school tournaments on La Concha beach.

He would come alive on the pitch. “He was really passionate,” says Yanguas. “He really lived the game.” But starting out at Antiguoko, few felt stardom beckoned for him.

“I remember our first sessions together and I would say I don’t remember feeling that he was going to become the football star he is today,” says Azpilicueta, who is no relation to the former Chelsea defender of the same name but had a good career of his own.

“He had a good touch, but physically he wasn’t by any means the biggest or the strongest or the quickest. It took him a while to grow.”

His trajectory, both physically and in terms of his career, changed in his U17 year. “I would say that was the moment when he really took off,” says Azpilicueta. “He’d always had that intelligence, but now it was accompanied by that physical development.”

“At that age, you could see he was going to be a first division player,” says Parra. “Maybe not that he was going to win the Champions League, but you could see was going to be a top-level player.”

According to Azpilicueta, he also benefitted from the qualities of humility and intelligence evident in Arteta and Iraola.

“I would say he was a very normal kid, like the rest of us. He didn’t stand out in any particular way. He had a sense of humour. He was a good friend to his friends. But above all, he was very intelligent. He always made good decisions, on and off the pitch.

“I would say that has been a big part of his success.”

‘We’ve never changed the DNA’

So how does this little club do it? Arteta, Alonso and Iraola are of course their best-known graduates but more recent ones include Arsenal’s Martin Zubimendi, their second World Cup winner after Alonso, and Rayo Vallecano boss Iñigo Perez.

Some point to the club’s scouting in the area – “Oscar Landa, our sporting director, has a 95 per cent success rate,” says Montiel – others to the atmosphere created by the longevity and commitment of their staff. But it usually comes back to the same thing.

“We’ve never changed the DNA of Antiguoko,” says Montiel. “Competitive instinct, intensity and sporting discipline are non-negotiable.” It is surely no coincidence that his old mentee Arteta uses that same term in reference to his managerial philosophy.

“We try to instil the values of sacrifice, discipline, hard work, teamwork and competitiveness,” adds Iñigo Iraola. “I think it also reflects what the Basque player is: dedicated and committed to working hard every day. I think that’s what makes us special.”

Arteta, Alonso and Iraola personify those traits, as much managers as they did as players.

“The results should be seen in sporting terms, but also in human terms,” says the club’s general director Gorka Azpeita. “Beyond the footballing talent they have, it’s important to highlight what they’re like as people. They should be seen for the values they have, the people they are, and how it’s enabled them to get where they are.”

The only remaining question, then, is who they will be rooting for when Arteta and Alonso go head to head some 600 miles away in north London on Sunday. “That’s like choosing between Mum and Dad,” says Azpeita, laughing. “A draw would be perfect.”

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