Arteta spoke with Real Madrid hero Jorge Valdano about his career this week.
He said on Universo Valdano: "The spark was born when I was 14 or 15, at Barcelona. The coaches talked to me about the game in a new way, I started to see football from a different perspective."
But the real turning point came at Everton: "At 26, I had a bad knee injury, a torn cruciate ligament. At that moment, I asked myself, 'What if tomorrow I couldn't play anymore?' So I started studying to be a coach.
"At 31, I was more excited about coaching than playing."
Among his mentors, the most influential was Pep Guardiola: "He told me, 'If I go to England, I want you to come with me.' But I was still captain of Arsenal. In the end, I accepted: it was tough, my family moved to the US, I moved to Manchester. But it was like being a child again."
Then he returned to Arsenal, this time as manager, with a rebuilding project the brief.
"The club was directionless. I found resignation and a culture of 'blaming others.' Everything had to change, and we did it," declared Arteta.