Fabregas uses Arteta chats & notebook nuggets from Pep to fuel managerial path

Cesc Fabregas scaled the very top of football’s summit as a player. He now finds himself at the foot of that mountain once more, preparing to tackle it as a coach.

The 36-year-old has swapped his boots for tactics boards; 60,000-seater stadiums have been traded for cramped academy grounds, effortless two-hour training sessions replaced with the demands of a twenty-four-seven job. Still, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Fabregas greets Mail Sport at the Konami Youth Development Centre in the northern ward of Affori in Milan – home to Inter’s youth academy.

It is the site of an early test in his nascent career on the touchline, bringing his Como Primavera side, an Under-19 team in Italy’s second tier of youth football, to take on the most promising talent from one of Europe’s biggest clubs in a pre-season friendly on a balmy August afternoon.

It’s a far-cry from the arenas he’s become accustomed too, but it’s a change he is relishing.

‘It’s obviously different to what I was used to as a player but I think it’s becoming really natural for me,’ he says.

‘I’m getting to know the players, they’re getting to know me, my way of playing, my identity, my ideas. I couldn’t be happier for now.

‘The biggest difference is that before you were told what to do, and now I have to be the one organising everything, setting up and analysing. It’s a twenty-four-seven job. It’s non-stop – a lot of times on the phone, on video calls, in meetings.’

Three weeks in, the long hours show no sign of extinguishing his enthusiasm, nor his passion. Prowling the touchline, the former Chelsea and Barcelona midfielder cuts an animated figure, invoking images of his former tutors Antonio Conte and Pep Guardiola.

He is vocal and hands-on with his players,