Serie A club Parma want to appoint Arsenal assistant manager Carlos Cuesta as their new manager, with talks at the final stages with the Gunners, according to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano.
Popular amongst the players in the North London camp as documented in Arsenal’s All or Nothing episodes on Amazon Prime from the 2022 season – Carlos Cuesta’s influence in understanding players and the coaching staff was monumental.
Granit Xhaka in June 2024: “I am sure that one day Carlos Cuesta will be a manager for a big, big, big club. I say this because he knows what he wants, he has clear ideas & clear goals that he wants to achieve. I am certain that we will see him on the touchline as a manager.”
Although signing a new contract until 2027 during the course of last season along with the rest of Arteta’s backroom staff, he will now move to Italy, replacing Cristian Chivu as Parma head coach.
Overview on Carlos Cuesta’s Journey through Football
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Spaniard joined Arteta’s services in 2020, aged 24 and took on the role as the first team individual development coach and assistant coach who would report on a daily basis to Mikel Arteta.
Carlos Cuesta was born in 1995 in Spain and had already made up his mind in studying for a career in football management at the age of 18.
His managerial career started as manager of the youth academy of Spanish side Atletico Madrid in 2018, and he was quickly appointed as the assistant manager of the youth academy of Italian giants Juventus. It was only in 2020, Cuesta was appointed as the assistant coach. The former Atletico Madrid and Juventus youth coach speaks six languages and is regarded as one of the top young coaches in world football.
How did it all begin for Carlos Cuesta?
Cuesta used to play for a local side in Mallorca, since the age of 15. Since a young age, he had a realised his passion and talent for coaching. At the age of 18, he started by learning multiple languages like French, Italian and English. This helped him build a base in proficiently speaking up to almost 6 languages in total.
Carlos Cuesta chose one of the most unique routes to get into this field – he leveraged the use of social media to look for his coaching opportunities, mainly Twitter.
Speaking to Spanish publication El Pais, Cuesta revealed that he reached out to literally everyone he could find on Twitter associated with Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. He managed to get his first admirer through the platform.
This led to his first managerial stint at Atletico Madrid’s u-17s in 2014, where he was appointed as the assistant manager at the age of 19! He simultaneously got his UEFA Pro License and made a move to Juventus’ u17 side in 2018.
To move a step further in his career he realised he needed to get inputs from some of the best in the field of coaching, so he invested his time and money into it. One of these educational visits earned him the opportunity to meet Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta at Man City. He believed that to excel in this field he needed to spend time learning from the greats.
On his list are now(then) Roberto Martínez, the coach of the Belgium national team, Massimiliano Allegri (Juventus), Thomas Tuchel (PSG), Jürgen Klopp (Liverpool) and Mauricio Pochettino (Tottenham). He got valuable inputs from each of these managers, but the one that stood out and had a lasting impact was Mikel Arteta.
Speaking to El Pais in 2019, Cuesta revealed: “I highlight Mikel Arteta. He is going to be a great coach. He was also able to verify the importance of details in elite training sessions and in-game analysis.” Quickly in 2020 when Arteta wanted to expand his coaching staff at Arsenal, he turned up to Cuesta and signed him as the individual player development coach.
Role Individual Player Development Coach specifically do?
This is explained in great depth by the website Training Ground Gurus
What makes him special in the coaching set up is his young age and ability for players to relate to him with ease. Nuno Tavares (on loan at Nottingham Forest) stated in Arsenal’s Amazon All or Nothing documentary, “Carlos, he can understand players because he’s young too. He helped me get better and improve.”
Cuesta is a firm practitioner of the philosophy of improvement. He applies it to himself and also intends to transfer it to his players, help them build their character. He has an elite motto, “No excuses, but solutions. There are no buts. The complaint or the excuse is still another lost opportunity.”
With his tactical knowledge and quality to understand a human nature and what is best for each players improvement makes us call Cuesta as one of the brightest coaching prospects in Europe and a manager in the making who’ll compete directly against Arsenal’s historic players, now turned coaches – Cesc Fabregas (Como) and Patrick Viera (Genoa)