Should you ever find yourself in the unlikely position of entrusting Mikel Arteta with your travel plans, cross your fingers. Because the Arsenal manager, apparently, has a foolproof method for dealing with stress and the unexpected: creating them on purpose, so his squad – in this case, the poor Arsenal players – gets used to the sort of things that can actually happen. The devilish logic of the method was put to the test just the other day, when the Gunners, travelling to Naples for their victorious Champions League away game, found themselves caught up in the disruption that stranded tens of thousands of passengers at London’s airports. Three hours late, and apparently taking it all with a smile, according to their manager.
“I like challenges of all kinds, and I make sure I prepare my players for these things during pre-season,” Arteta revealed after the match. “Arriving at the stadium very late, changing my players’ routine so that they become accustomed to the unexpected. Because a flight can be cancelled, there can be traffic, and I don’t want the staff or the players to panic.” Hence the deliberate sabotage. “And it works. When it happens, you have to adapt: instead of getting nervous, if you approach those three hours of delay in the right way, they become an opportunity to spend time together, build the group, rest. Complaining, on the other hand, gets you nowhere. And these setbacks cannot become an excuse after a bad performance.”
So Arteta has deliberately delayed meals and transport, lengthened journeys and generally made things a little more uncomfortable: turning up the temperature in the dressing room, for example, or reducing the number of massage tables. Things that can happen when you travel to stadiums all over the world. The important thing is to learn how to be flexible in different environments, some of them difficult and unpredictable. It is the only way to take the element of surprise out of the pre-match equation, and it reduces stress, which really matters.
One wonders how much Saliba and his teammates love him for it. Jokes aside, the Spanish coach is the undisputed architect of Arsenal’s most impressive spell in recent history, helped by a hard core of players shaped around his methods and his authority on the touchline. And Arteta himself is hardly new to situations that are, to put it mildly, bizarre. Once, to test his players’ reactions, he even hired a pickpocket – or someone claiming to be one. On another occasion, he began wandering around the training ground carrying a light bulb, solemnly insisting that this was where the team’s energy was supposed to come from. A cross between Edison, Nietzsche’s madman and Accountant Filini, judging by his disaster-proof approach to travel.