Mikel Arteta believes having open heart surgery as a child shaped his football career after opening up to his Arsenal players about the ordeal.
The Gunners boss, now 40, underwent the life-saving procedure as a two-year-old. The surgery became public knowledge last month, when Prime Video released a trailer for their new documentary series 'All or Nothing: Arsenal', which charts the club's 2021/22 campaign.
In the trailer, Arteta is filmed talking to his players about the surgery ahead of their Premier League game against Norwich last September. At the time, Arsenal were yet to pick up their first point of the season after losing to Brentford, Chelsea and Manchester City - conceding nine goals and scoring none. They went on to beat Norwich 1-0.
"I never opened up like this to anyone," Arteta told BBC Sport in an emotional interview. "I think 90 per cent of the boys or staff wouldn't know about that issue. But it's how I felt just before that moment, it's nothing that I planned."
Arteta added: "I was born with a big heart issue that they could not resolve until I was two years old because I was too little. They had to open my heart and go through it.
"It was one of the first surgeries that was done in that way in Spain, so we didn't know how it was going to end up. I was a really lively kid, the doctor was telling my father and mother that he needs to calm down, that he's not going to be able to do much exercise with that problem."
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Arteta recovered from the surgery to join Barcelona's famous La Masia academy as a 15-year-old, coming through the ranks before enjoying a successful playing career with Paris Saint-Germain, Rangers, Real Sociedad, Everton and the Gunners.
During his time on the pitch, the midfielder won the Scottish Premier League, Scottish League Cup, two FA Cups and two Community Shields. He retired as Arsenal's captain in the summer of 2016 but never won a senior cap for Spain due to the likes of Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas dominating their midfield.
Arteta became Pep Guardiola's assistant at Manchester City on his retirement and was appointed as Unai Emery's successor at Arsenal in December 2019. He's won the FA Cup and Community Shield as a manager but is yet to qualify for the Champions League.
"Everything developed in a normal way and I was able to fulfil my dream to be a professional footballer," added Arteta. When asked if the open heart surgery shaped his football carer, he said: "I think it did in a way.
"When I was younger, I was told you cannot do that, you cannot expose yourself so much, we cannot take you to the limit of your heart capacity. I was always pushing myself to the limit.
"The support from my parents was great and then they had the courage to look for the best possible specialist - and those specialists always had the courage to push those barriers a little bit further because they could see how important it was for me."
Arteta's emotional team talk against Norwich went as follows: "In many industries there are high performance teams. And these high performance teams are called like this because they all have something in common - because they get results.
"When I was born, I was born with a big heart disease. And for two years they had to try to save my life until I had the opportunity to have the first open surgery in Spain. So a high performance team, not a football team or basketball team for example, it can be an emergency team, the ones that work for example in hospitals.
"These teams have to be surrounded by people, they are very special. They are willing to work 24/7. They do it only for one reason - because they love what they do. That's their drive, that's their purpose."
