The Unforgettable, Unorthodox Way Mikel Arteta Convinced Riccardo Calafiori to Join Arsenal

Calafiori explained his first emotional heart-to-heart with Arteta in an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated.

Riccardo Calafiori (left) has been one of Mikel Arteta’s star players. | Marc Atkins/Getty Images

It was not the mountain of statistics or a ridiculously in-depth knowledge of his performances for Bologna which convinced Riccardo Calafiori to join Arsenal over the queue of rival suitors knocking on his door 18 months ago. No, Mikel Arteta got the upper hand by producing a picture of Calafiori’s family.

This was no hostage scenario but rather the latest insight into Arteta’s unorthodox approach to his emotionally-riddled role as Arsenal’s figurehead.

“The first time that I was in contact with Arsenal I think it was right before the Euros,” Calafiori recalls in an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated, thinking back to the summer of 2024. At the time, the versatile centre back was one of the hottest defensive commodities on the market, elbowing his way into Luciano Spalletti’s Italy squad after playing an inventive role as Bologna recorded their highest league finish in half a century.

“I think throughout the season I never wanted to to hear any rumours about my next season because I wanted to be focused with my team, with the national team,” Calafiori recounts.

“At first he [Arteta] just wanted to meet me and explain [to] me how eventually the project [would look] with me. He showed me so many things, so many details, so many statistics and they show me even images of my family actually.” Instead of the cold numbers, it was Arteta’s warm touch which remained lodged in Calafiori’s memory a year and a half later.

“That was a part that I really won’t forget about. Since I was a kid, obviously [I was] really close with my mom as an Italian kid [and with] my dad and my sister as well. And he just asked me what my family represent for me, you know, [showed] some images of my sister or my mom or my dad.”

Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United were all linked with the elegant defender, yet none showed the soft skills which Arteta demonstrated in that first meeting and over the course of the subsequent 18 months.

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Calafiori’s Growth ‘As a Player and As a Man’

There is a wry smile creeping around the edges of Calafiori’s mouth as he reflects on Arteta’s approach to management. “I can describe his mentality like he doesn’t care if it’s the first day of preseason or minus one [one day before] the Champions League final, he will train us in the same way,” the Italian grins. “He really wants you to train as if you’re playing a game.”

Beyond the never-ending demands, that attentive edge which convinced Calafiori to join Arsenal is just as prevalent. “I see how much he cares about me, how much he’s focused, how much he wants me to improve,” the left back says of Arteta.

“Every single detail every single day. I remember this since the beginning of the preseason. We we were already trying the new mechanisms and the new tactics. He was already thinking about the start of the season.”

Calafiori’s career has been defined by three key transfer decisions. The heartbreak of being told by his boyhood club Roma that he had no future in the eternal city was painfully fresh when the then-20-year-old took the unorthodox route of moving to Swiss side Basel. After an impressive season outside Europe’s traditional elite, which nevertheless saw him gatecrash the Conference League semi-finals, he bet on Thiago Motta’s Bologna coming good.

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Riccardo Calafiori’s Winding Career Path

Date	Age	Move
Dec. 15, 2020	18	Signs five-year deal with Roma
Jan. 14, 2022	19	Joins Genoa on loan
Aug. 31, 2022	20	Sold by Roma to Basel
Aug. 31, 2023	21	Sold by Basel to Bologna
July 29, 2024	22	Sold by Bologna to Arsenal

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That gamble paid off as I Rossoblù unexpectedly qualified for the Champions League, elevating Calafiori from an unearthed gem to a national team regular. At that summer’s Euros, Spalletti freely compared him to the two modern greats of Italian defending; Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci. The latter had something to say about that: Calafiori could prove to be even better. “Riccardo is different from the other defenders,” Bonucci gushed.

With the world at his feet and no shortage of interest, Calafiori was presented with another difficult choice. He’s convinced he made the correct one.

“I could see that was the right decision for me,” he says. “The whole environment, the whole staff members, they just want you to improve a lot. My idea was to come here to the best league in the world, to the most competitive league in the world. And I think it was the right decision for me to grow up as a player and as a man.

“And now I can say that I was right for sure.”

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Calafiori ‘Instrumental’ to Solving Arsenal’s Current Woes

Riccardo Calafiori is Arsenal’s weapon of mayhem. | Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images

Calafiori’s move to Arsenal has proven to be just as beneficial for the team as the individual.

While his technical quality in possession is rightly revered, it’s fitting that Calafiori’s father initially handed his son the nickname “Ruspa”—Bulldozer—given his crucial role as Arsenal’s attacking agent of chaos.

“Richy has been instrumental, especially in the way that we attack,” Arteta beamed this week after welcoming Calafiori back from a month-long injury layoff. “He has unique qualities to occupy spaces and to create things that, probably, the qualities of the other fullbacks are different.”

During Calafiori’s absence, Arsenal were held to a pair of 0–0 draws by Liverpool and Nottingham Forest before falling to a frustrating and creatively sparse 3–2 reverse at home to Manchester United. Piero Hincapié, a natural centre back who never quite looks comfortable in the final third, and the right-footed Jurriën Timber, filled in for Calafiori during these fixtures, yet neither ever came close to replicating his bombastic approach.

Calafiori isn’t an inverted fullback so much as a roaming menace. In a team which operates under the straightjacket of Arteta’s tactical control, this roving 6'2" top-knot has the freedom to spread his limbs all over the pitch. After the first eight matches of the season, no player in Arsenal’s squad could better the left back’s tally of 16 shots. Up until Calafiori’s muscle injury over the Christmas break, he was still out-shooting star centre forward summer signing Viktor Gyökeres.

On top of the superior stats, Calafiori brings a sense of fun and spontaneity to an Arsenal team which can be difficult for some neutrals to watch at times. That element is crucial. As he is so keen to point out, Calafiori’s entire career in north London has always had its roots in pure emotion.

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