Per Mertesacker hung up his playing boots five years ago, but his pre-match nerves still remain.
As Arsenal’s academy manager, Mertesacker is tasked with developing the stars of tomorrow, and they will be on show on Tuesday night at the Emirates Stadium as the Gunners take on West Ham in the FA Youth Cup Final.
It is not that, though, which leaves Mertesacker so nervous that he stutters. That happens when the German has conversations with those players who have not made the grade and the club have decided to release them.
“[Those conversations] don’t get any easier,” says Mertesacker. “There is always a different person, a different face. There are emotions involved, you know? I go into these meetings and I am nervous, I stutter when I talk.”
The bar to make it at Arsenal is incredibly high — and that much is clear when you walk around their academy base at Hale End.
On the walls of one corridor are shirts signed with messages from academy graduates Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah. “Work hard and enjoy the journey,” Saka has written on his. In the canteen is a huge board, which has the name and date of each academy graduate who made their first-team debut.
Since taking charge of the Gunners’ academy in 2018, Mertesacker has introduced a four-pillar system that underlines his core principles: lifelong learner, most efficient mover, champion mentality and effective team player.
Sessions, even those at under-nine level, are filmed to get players used to analysing their own game. For those playing in the U16s, training is filmed by bird’s-eye cameras that are controlled remotely by those editing the footage on-the-fly indoors.
Manager Mikel Arteta and technical director Edu are heavily involved in the academy, and they interviewed Jack Wilshere before he was named U18 manager last summer.
Mertesacker has developed a good relationship with Edu, while he knows Arteta from their playing days. That helps him transmit Arteta’s philosophy into the academy, while he is further aided by first-team players Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny and Rob Holding taking some sessions as they work towards their coaching badges.
“I see the value of having people from the club who know the DNA, know the playing style, know the standards,” says Mertesacker. “It is powerful.”
The pressure of playing for Arsenal is immense, and the academy constantly tests youngsters to see how they will cope.
Players are often pushed up an age group and sat on the bench to see how they react. Likewise, when they are sent on loan, Mertesacker is just as intrigued to hear how they act off the pitch as much as on it.
It’s important how good you are on the ball, but the key is how quickly can you learn
“It’s important how good you are on the ball, but the key is how quickly can you learn, because you’re going to get fined for something you are doing [wrong], even if it’s a silly thing,” he says. “How do you cope with that? ‘Here, pay it and move on. No problem’. You can’t say, ‘I’m from Arsenal, I don’t pay this’.”
Players are told how they are always being watched and to stay on their toes, because an opportunity may come at any moment. Last season, U-16 goalkeeper Alexei Rojas Fedorushchenko was called up to first-team training by Arteta during an international break.
The aim for Mertesacker is to make sure that, whenever players leave Hale End, they do so as better people. As a result, a strong emphasis is placed on education, but also players exploring interests outside of football.
Midfielder Myles Lewis-Skelly, who will start against the Hammers on Tuesday and is regarded as one of the brightest prospects in the academy, volunteered at Arsenal’s community hub last season, for instance.
“This club, this academy, is about more than just kicking the ball around,” says Mertesacker. “If you just build a foundation on your football skills, that will be over.”
Victory on Tuesday in front of a crowd of 30,000 would be a big moment for Arsenal, who have not won the FA Youth Cup since 2009 — when Wilshere was in the team.
For Mertesacker, however, the result will not alter his belief that the club is on the right path. The German views the academy in 10-year cycles and, in that sense, he is just getting started.
“I’m looking at the next three years thinking, ‘this is when the real work starts’,” he says.
