Carlos Cuesta is the youngest member of Mikel Arteta's coaching staff at Arsenal. The 27-year-old is an integral part of the squad but how did he get to this position at such a young age?
Twitter user and Arsenal fan Sash (@ltarsenal on Twitter) has explained his career trajectory and his role in the squad.
"You must have all seen Carlos Cuesta sitting down with players in Arsenal's Amazon All or Nothing documentary. The Spaniard joined Arsenal in August 2020, aged 24 and took on the role as the first team individual development coach, reporting directly to Mikel Arteta.
"Carlos Cuesta, born in 1995 in Palma de Mallorca in Spain has had a remarkable rise to pursuing his passion and dream: to be a coach at the highest level. Let's take a closer look at his fascinating journey. Aged 15, Cuesta played for a small, local side in Mallorca.
"In addition to playing, Cuesta also coached his teammates in parallel. This was when he realised his passion and talent for coaching. Cuesta was relentless in improving himself. At 18 years of age, he began learning multiple languages, namely French, Italian and English.
"Currently, Carlos is proficient in 6 languages which also include Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan! What's very interesting is that Cuesta leveraged social media to look for his first 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. Nobody responded, apart from one person... And this is where his proper coaching journey begins.
"This led to a stint with the Atletico Madrid U-17s in 2014, where he was an assistant manager as a 19-year-old! Cuesta then went to obtain his UEFA Pro License and became the assistant manager of Juventus' U-17 side in 2018.
"To further enhance his skill, Cuesta believed that he needed to collect experiences from some of the best coaches in the game and invested his time and money to do just that. One of these educational visits was when he got the opportunity to meet Guardiola and Arteta at Man City.
"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."
"Cuesta's meeting with Arteta left a lasting impression. In 2020, Mikel Arteta was looking to expand his coaching staff and he turned to Cuesta who joined Arsenal as the individual player development coach.
"But what does this role of "Individual player development" even mean? This is explained in great depth by @ground_guru:
"Cuesta works one-on-one with every member of Arsenal’s first-team squad and is able to communicate with them in their mother tongue, as he speaks English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Catalan.
"Much of the work is unopposed or ‘passive’, with a focus on technical skills and tactical principles.
"The start of the journey is working out a player's individual identity - who they are and what they need - and this is holistic, taking into account their physical, mental, technical and tactical capabilities and requirements.
"This is why it's so important for Cuesta to plug into the wider staff and collaborate with the different subject matter experts to ensure a player's development needs are being met."
