Learning from the giants: how Arsenal became a top European club again under Mikel Arteta

On Tuesday evening, Arsenal FC hosts Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final. Ahead of this match, the London club will be focusing on a spectacular signing from the summer of 2023. One the likes of which English football has never seen before: a female dog.

At the time, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was convinced that a brown Labrador Retriever could help foster a sense of camaraderie within the club. He explained the unusual signing by citing the club's need for "a representative for our family." The Basque, who had previously played for Arsenal, named the dog "Win" – as motivation for the players to finally win another major title with Arsenal.

The club last won the league title in 2004, and Arsenal have never even won the Champions League. As if to dispel this bad karma, Arteta recently took the dog out for a prominent walk. The Sun newspaper found a fitting play on words: "Win walk."

This animal anecdote vividly demonstrates that Arteta is doing everything he can to lead Arsenal back to winning ways. After his appointment in December 2019, he awakened the club from the slumber it had fallen into during the seasons following Arsène Wenger's era from 1996 to 2019. Wenger's Gunners also suffered at the time because the grand seigneur had pushed through the construction of a new stadium, which the club had to finance largely without support from the owners. Arteta profited from this feat by being able to use the newly generated revenue to completely revamp his own team. The transfer losses during his tenure amounted to more than half a billion Swiss francs.

Arteta was inspired by England's leading football clubs, Liverpool FC and Manchester City, whose manager Josep Guardiola he assisted for years before joining Arsenal. Arteta's strategy is to use the strengths of his rivals to beat them at their own game.

Arteta and his team developed a dominant possession-based style of football, similar to Manchester City's. The Gunners have a good feel for the ball, can patiently measure up an opponent, and combine until a gap opens up. The coach also added elements that Liverpool have long practiced: a fierce pressing style popularized by former Reds manager Jürgen Klopp. Arteta has also adopted Klopp's rhetoric of involving the fans as the so-called "twelfth man."

At every opportunity, he emphasizes the importance of a powerful soundscape. Arsenal fans have recently begun singing their own anthem before kickoff, inspired by Liverpool's "You'll Never Walk Alone." It was conceived by an Arsenal member and is intended to fire up the atmosphere in the stadium. It's titled "North London Forever," a reference to the club's geographical location.

Arteta's actions have been viewed with some skepticism in England. He has been accused of plagiarizing his opponents. Arteta, however, has firmly defended himself against such accusations: He said he has never simply "copy and paste," but has perfected the qualities of his toughest competitors and supplemented them with his own strengths. Yet he admitted his admiration for Guardiola, repeatedly referring to his former mentor as an inspiration. He expressed himself similarly with Klopp. After a win against Liverpool, he celebrated in his own way: he raised his fist several times. Klopp reassured the crowd at the time by saying that he did not invent the gesture and did not own the copyright to it; everyone could celebrate as they wished.

However, reducing Arsenal's rise to these aspects alone would be too simplistic. Arteta has also trained his team in things that Liverpool and Manchester City have not particularly emphasized. These include goals scored by Arsenal after rehearsed variations from corners and free kicks; Arteta's assistant, Berlin-born Nicolas Jover, is an expert in set pieces.

Added to this is the ability to defend a lead in their own half for extended periods. Arsenal succeeds in doing this because they stretch the rules to the limits of legality by delaying the game and provoking opponents. This is completely normal in football, said defender Gabriel Magalhães after a match against Manchester City. Guardiola countered that if Arsenal wanted to start a sporting war, they could get one. However, the methods had the desired effect: In the Premier League, Arsenal have not lost a match against Liverpool and Manchester City in two seasons.

Arsenal FC will have to demonstrate all of these qualities in the semi-final clash with the young sky-scrapers from Paris in order to reach the Champions League final for the second time after 2006. Back then, the London club lost 2-1 to FC Barcelona after an early red card against goalkeeper Jens Lehmann.

In the league recently, it seemed as if the self-imposed high expectations were weighing heavily on the team. A similar experience happened to Liverpool, who waited even longer for a triumph in Europe's premier club competition. But at Liverpool FC, the tension was lifted with the 2019 Champions League triumph, followed a year later by the Premier League title.

Perhaps this is also the way for the Gunners – to do justice to the dog’s name.