Cesc Fàbregas has always stood out for his precocity. Traveling by taxi at just nine years old from Arenys de Mar to attend Barça training sessions was just the prelude to what was to come. After leading the generation of '87 with his great friends Piqué and Messi, a call from London shortly after moving to La Masia changed everything. On the other end of the phone was Arsène Wenger, the coach who would catapult him to the elite.
Arsenal was betting on a beardless teenager – incidentally, the Blaugrana club reduced the outstanding debt for the signings of Overmars and Petit with Figo's money – and, at the age of 16, he had already made his debut with the first team. The rest is well known.
Its end has been more inadvertent. This summer he announced his retirement after a year in Como, a place as beautiful as it is strange to hang up his boots, even more so for a world champion. The calm and peace exuded by the famous lake located at the foot of the Alps contrasts with the hustle and bustle of London, where he stayed the longest (12 seasons) during his 20-year career.
Cesc had a plan for the day after and he wanted to execute it immediately. And overnight, at 36 years old, he went from managing a team from the field to doing so from the sideline. From the ball to the board. “I wanted the footballer-coach transition to be quick. I didn't see myself not knowing what to do when my career was over. I wanted to finish playing after a horrible last year at Monaco, with constant injuries that kept me out of many games. Como offered me everything I was looking for: being in the countryside while I continued getting my license, a quiet place for the family and an ambitious long-term project with freedom to put my ideas into practice," he says in a meeting with La Vanguardia. in Venice, hours before directing a match for the Primavera, the Lombards' subsidiary.
Owned by the Indonesian company Djarum, the still modest Como – active in Serie B, the second Italian team – went to look for Cesc through Dennis Wise, former English footballer and current general director. “We shared experiences about what we wanted, how to grow… and we began to believe it.” In addition to playing and later training at the base, he was offered to become a shareholder in the club. “It was a very complete package.”
When he was free, Cesc declined Saudi offers (“they knocked on my door several times, but it didn't sound good to me at that moment”) and did not even consider going to Miami with Messi. “The decision had been made.” He signed for two years, but at the end of the first he said enough. The physical problems of his final stage hampered his performance and affected him emotionally. "I had a bad time. He thought more about how his body would respond than about playing, which is what he had done all his life. He could have lasted one more year, but he wasn't enjoying it anymore. The training sessions in Italy are about a lot of running, not so much about football concepts, and they seemed very long. "It didn't fit my mentality and I was burning out."
– Did you end up tired of football?
– Let's say that I don't miss being a footballer. That suffering of getting up in the morning, putting both feet on the ground and asking myself: 'How am I doing today? Can I train? Can I play?’… In the end I was only motivated by the game. I really like my current profession, I enjoy it.
Tactical rigor and defensive work define the Italian idiosyncrasy. Fàbregas' challenge is to implement the associative football that characterized him on the field. He tries to apply it already with the spring, which he finds satisfactory. “I must maintain my philosophy and be prepared for when I get a first team. I have instilled a very different idea in the boys. At first they didn't have more than three passes and now they combine.” He wants a team that is strong in recovering after a loss, intense in pressing and controlling the game with the ball, but with intention: “80% possession without creating danger is no use to me.”
Also a commentator, Cesc was “bitten by the bug” to be a coach during confinement. “The French championship was suspended, and I took advantage of that time to start training. I saw that the worlds of the footballer and the coach are very different. Before they told me 'at ten o'clock to train' and I didn't worry about anything else. Now I'm the one who says it and I have to take care of a thousand things, beyond training. I had never received so many calls in my life,” he confesses.
He recognizes that having coaches located at opposite poles – from Wenger and Guardiola to Mourinho and Conte – has enriched him. “It has expanded my vision of football. I don't believe in just one way to play, you can win in many ways. In that sense I feel privileged because I have touched all the sticks.” He considers this ability to adapt to be fundamental and repeats it to his players. “Throughout their careers they will meet technicians of all kinds, and those most willing to adjust to what they ask of them will gain their trust first.”
As a footballer, he enjoyed Wenger's trust from the beginning, although there was a lot of work behind it. Without having a privileged physique, he triumphed in the most demanding league in the world thanks to his “quality” and his “head”. “I had to think before everyone else, see the field in a broader way, understand what was happening around me…” And he remembers: “My debut in the Premier was at Everton's home with Gravesen and Carsley (two forceful guys, to put it mildly) in midfield... I was a noodle. If I hadn't played like that it would have been impossible for me."
Between Arsenal and Chelsea he achieved the best ratio of assists and games ever in the Premier (111). The statistics were also on his side in his three years at Barça. He scored 42 goals and distributed 50 assists, “very high figures for a midfielder,” although he recognizes that “in football not everything is numbers.” “We had to face the departure of Pep, the illnesses of Abidal and Tito, the latter being out for seven months, the arrival of Tata... many changes. When things didn't go well, some of us were held more responsible than others and nothing can be said. It is understandable that he was not so critical of those who had won everything.” He does not regret, in the least, his return. “I was in the club I wanted and I enjoyed it a lot. We won titles, I scored in finals and semifinals, I played with friends and in the best stadium in the world, with my family nearby. Maybe I would change just the moment I arrived, but when Pep calls you..."
Now he watches Barça games whenever he can. “They have the continuity that they have been missing in recent years. The young people have matured and there were many new faces that had to adapt. The renewal reinforces Xavi to continue developing his idea.”
He considers that the footballer is the one who should feel more pressure because he puts the coach's weekly plan into practice, "but it is true that players have more opportunities when things don't work out." “I remember when Mou was fired at Chelsea months after winning the league and cup. The plan was practically the same but the players were not up to par. “I felt like it was our fault.” Therefore, he asks for patience, a rare virtue in modern football. “Look at Arsenal under Arteta in recent years: eighth, eighth, fifth... and look at the results now. Last season they almost won the Premier. “Sometimes it takes time to move a project forward.”
