Exclusive: ‘I knew he was going to change our world’ – Mikel Arteta reveals which transfer he Loved (Video)

Arteta’s first taste of how transfers work came back in 2001 when he made the surprise move from Barcelona B, where he had progressed through from the club’s famous La Masia academy, to Paris Saint-Germain.

Luis Fernandez was in charge of the French outfit at the time, having previously spent four years in charge of Athletic Bilbao. The former France international had the likes of Laurent Robert, Jay-Jay Okocha and Nicolas Anelka in his squad, but he had seen enough of Arteta to convince him the young midfielder would be a good addition.

So he set the wheels in motion, and for the teenage Arteta, everything soon turned into a blur. “It was crazy,” he recalls. “I was in Barcelona living with my mum.

I finished training with the Barca B team and suddenly I get a phone call saying Luis Fernandez wants to speak to you. “I said ‘what?”.

“I pick up the phone and he says, ‘you come here tonight. I tried to sign you to Atletico Bilbao when I was there, I want you in the team and you are going to play for me’. I was like, ‘really?’

“I went straight away on the internet and was looking at the team they had which was full of stars and I was like ‘OK, let’s go for it’.

“So we packed our bags that afternoon, took a plane that evening and we went to Paris. And that was it.

I didn’t know what to expect, I’d never played a professional game and was a total unknown to everybody.”

Transfer stories now dominate the news cycle in football, even when the transfer window is closed. Fans around the world are captivated by reports about who their club might sign next, with almost every detail of the mega-money deals being dissected in the papers and on the internet.

For someone like Arteta, who is known for liking to keep things close to his chest, that can be frustrating – especially when competition for the world’s best players is so fierce. But it’s something he does understand as he can remember the excitement that he felt growing up as a Barcelona fan hearing who would be the next superstar to grace the Camp Nou.

“The first one was Romario,” he says. “When Barcelona signed Romario from PSV I was looking at videos of him and it was incredible.

“Then it was Ronaldo and Rivaldo. They were the first three top, top signings that I remember. It was incredible, trying to find where the pre-games were going to be so I could watch them. It was great.”