Former realist: Mikel Arteta reveals that he underwent heart surgery when he was 2 years old

Mikel Arteta (San Sebastián, 1982), former Real Sociedad player and current Arsenal manager, has revealed in a documentary about the London club a difficult time he had to face when he was just 2 years old. As Arteta reveals in the Amazon Prime Video work entitled ‘All or Nothing’ (All or nothing), which will consist of eight chapters, “I was born with a big problem in my heart that they could not solve until I was two years old because it was too much little. They had to open my heart and examine it.”

The docuseries follows in the footsteps of Arsenal during the 2021/22 season, both in terms of what happened during the competition and in training, where the toughness of professional football is appreciated. An opportunity for fans to learn details of everyday life that are not usually taught.

In one of the scenes, Arteta addresses his players in the locker room and confesses that the operation he had to undergo “was one of the first surgeries that was done that way in Spain, so we didn’t know how it was going to finish…. Everything developed normally and I was able to fulfill my dream of being a professional footballer».

Smith Rowe, Ben White, Mikel Arteta, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney pose at the presentation of the documentary. Tuesday in London /

ep

In addition, Lorena Bernal’s husband acknowledges that this experience undoubtedly marked him in his youth. “They told me that you can’t do that, that you can’t expose yourself so much, that we can’t take you to the limit of your heart capacity… but it always took me to the limit,” he told the BBC during the presentation of the documentary that took place this week in London.

Formed in Antiguoko

That is to say, Arteta, who trained in Antiguoko and defended the elastic txuri-urdin in the 2004-05 campaign before emigrating to English football, acknowledges that this capacity for suffering allowed him to fulfill his dream. And it is that football, like life, requires overcoming many adversities to be part of the elite. Arteta faced them with integrity and now, many years later, he tells the whole world to serve as an inspiration.

The Arsenal coach, who tonight makes his debut in the new Premier League season against Crystal Palace, also stars in other more light-hearted moments such as when he reveals that one of the recipes to motivate his players has been to play the Liverpool anthem during the training. And it is that the technicians must resort to strategies of all kinds to have their footballers plugged in.

And it is that the coaches must have the iron glove and the silk fist to know how to lead a locker room full of young stars eager to succeed. So sometimes they pull on authority, on others character or sense of humor, and there are times when they must know how to motivate to squeeze the performance of their players. Like Eric Taylor did in the series ‘Friday Night Lights’, that television masterpiece. Like Mikel Arteta does at Arsenal.