Carlos Cuesta, a Spaniard, became a part of Arteta’s team in 2020 at the age of 24. He took on the role of the first-team individual development coach and reported to Mikel Arteta on a daily basis.
Cuesta was born in Spain in 1995 and decided to pursue a career in football management when he was 18. His managerial career began in 2018 as the manager of the youth academy of Atletico Madrid. Later, he was appointed as the assistant manager of the youth academy of Juventus. In 2020, he was promoted to assistant coach. Cuesta is a multilingual coach, fluent in six languages, and is widely regarded as one of the top young coaches in world football.
Recent rumours suggest that the 28-year-old Spaniard is being scouted by Norwich, who are looking to offer his first managerial role at the end of the season. Norwich are weighing up alternatives to current manager David Wagner, with the Canaries seventh in the Championship table and having a mixed season as they push for promotion.
Let’s begin by knowing a bit more about Carlos Cuesta and his journey through football
How did it all start 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 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.
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What does a Individual Player Development Coach specifically do?
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 soccer 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.”
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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.
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