In the lobby of Arsenal’s Orlando hotel lodge, there was evidence of footballers at rest: a table tennis table, a pool table, and — plugged into the widescreen television — the ubiquitous PlayStation. Even in their downtime, competition continues.
A tour is a very particular experience for a footballer — the training is intense and the regime relatively strict. There are media commitments and matches. The fans come to party; the players are there to work.
But it’s also an opportunity for the squad to interact with foreign fans and to gel as a group. On a typical day at training during the season, they spend a matter of hours together. After travelling to Germany and then onto America, some of these players have now spent a fortnight in each other’s company.
Arsenal will reflect on a highly successful excursion to the US: three wins, a kit launch, a new signing and a record crowd.
For 10 days, The Athletic’s Arsenal writer James McNicholas followed the team on their trips to Baltimore and then Orlando. These are his observations and insights from the tour.
The group have bonded
“The tour helps a lot,” Granit Xhaka tells The Athletic. “You are nearly 24-7 together. We are eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, always together, — but not only for us players, but as well for the other people that are here around because we don’t see them normally a lot in the training ground. And it’s good to see who is doing the work, why and who is helping us.”
Xhaka believes the bonds formed on this trip can help propel the team to greater heights next season.
“When we went to Dubai (in January), we had the same people around us as well,” he explains. “And when we came back, we had a lot of good games, a lot of points.”
💬 “We had a great time. Thank you so much for everybody that participated in organising this tour. We’ve tried to make it as enjoyable and as productive as possible.” ❤️
🎙 @M8Arteta pic.twitter.com/eZAYqkn31c
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 25, 2022
The players flew out in the comfort of a chartered Emirates plane. Groups naturally formed — a Portuguese-speaking gang of Gabriel Jesus, Marquinhos, Fabio Vieira and Gabriel Martinelli all sat together. Rob Holding told new arrival Matt Turner to sit with some of the English speakers in a set that included Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White and Kieran Tierney.
While squad members are inevitably closer to some players than others, there are no exclusive cliques. Effort is made to ensure everybody socialises — and everybody, even a new boy like Marquinhos, is encouraged to make an effort with English.
“Everyone mixes together,” explains Holding. “We made sure of that with our seating plans for dinners and lunches.
“We’ve mixed it up so each day, two of the players will sort out the table plan. So you’ll get two players, two members of coaching staff, some of the club media staff, and you’re mingling with different people all the time. It means you get to know them personally, their families. It gives you a bit more togetherness.”
Speaking of meals, while Arsenal’s squad were frequently asked which American delicacies they were enjoying — hamburgers, crab cakes or similar — the club actually brought first-team chefs with them to prepare the players’ food. As you might expect, the diet centred around lean meats and greens.
In Orlando, the club put on a special barbecue event where players, football staff and non-football employees were all mixed in together. Afterwards, there was a games night, with first-team personnel competing against Arsenal employees at table tennis and giant beer pong.
What does an “unhappy” player look like?
The Athletic was fortunate enough to watch Arsenal train on a couple of occasions. An observation: players often termed “unhappy” by the media don’t tend to look unhappy with a ball at their feet.
Hector Bellerin, Bernd Leno and Nicolas Pepe looked fully engaged on the training pitch, laughing and joking with their team-mates. Sometimes we can be guilty of assuming that a player who may want to move is a brooding, difficult presence. At Arsenal right now, that does not appear to be the case.
Pitch Problems
When Arsenal arrived in Baltimore, they were originally scheduled to train at UMBC — University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In preparation, they sent a staff member ahead of the tour party to check the standard of the pitches.
Arsenal had concerns the facilities were not up to the requisite standard — and those worries were compounded when a huge storm tore through the area the day before Arsenal’s arrival. Trees were felled, homes damaged, and more than 27,000 people in the vicinity were left without power.
Presumably, it didn’t do much for the state of the pitches either. Arsenal hurriedly arranged an alternative venue for training: the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, a 40-minute drive from Baltimore. This location might be familiar to London football fans: when Simon Jordan launched his ill-fated Crystal Palace Baltimore experiment, their inaugural fixture was played there.
These pitches more than met Arsenal’s standards — as did the excellent facilities at the ChampionsGate complex in Orlando. However, Arsenal would have been wrong to get too comfortable in Florida: when Toronto FC were training on the very same pitches in April 2021, a huge alligator crashed the session by waddling onto the field. The players were spared by a plucky ChampionsGate staffer, who chased the gator away in a golf cart.
The Athletic can confirm that none of Arsenal’s existing injury issues are alligator-related.
Battling boredom
Away from family, friends and the comfort of home, players can occasionally get bored on tour. It’s a fairly regimented period, with their schedule built around demanding training sessions.
In Baltimore, Arsenal resided at the Sagamore Pendry hotel, the luxury resort backed by Under Armour founder Kevin Plank. For the players, the location was ideal — Arsenal had taken over the majority of the hotel, which was located in the city’s attractive inner harbour. They were close to the fans and could soak up some of the atmosphere of the city.
In Orlando, Arsenal stayed at the Omni ChampionsGate resort — a beautiful location, but a little way out of town. Isolated from the other hotel guests in their own private lodge, and with the tour entering its latter stages, the threat of boredom began to creep in — especially when a temporary wi-fi outage robbed the players of the ability to stream movies or play games online.
The aforementioned table tennis and PlayStation — FIFA, of course — made for popular pastimes. Emile Smith Rowe also revealed that, during their initial training camp in Germany, the players went bowling.
The Omni resort is also home to a golf course, which went down well with a few players. There’s even an Arsenal golfing WhatsApp group.
“Yeah, there’s a big golf chat and I’m in it for some reason,” says Holding, who does not play golf and says he’s “never been any good”.
“I don’t know why I’m there,” he says incredulously. “They’re talking about the next day, when they’re going to go and play golf, and I’m just there listening to it all thinking, ‘I’m not involved in this, I don’t even know why I’m in here’.”
Arsenal assistant coach Steve Round is known to be a keen golfer and is highly competitive. There was a driving range players could access. During the tour, Ramsdale and fellow goalkeeper Alex Runarsson enjoyed a round of golf with club staff.
Other players chose less sedate activities: Mohamed Elneny, Reiss Nelson, William Saliba, Eddie Nketiah and Turner were among the players who took up the option of visiting the Universal Studios theme park. They were accompanied by members of staff, as well as World Cup winner Gilberto Silva, who was travelling in tandem with Ray Parlour as a club ambassador.
Unlike the trip to Dubai earlier this year, families were not invited to travel with the squad — but some players did receive brief visits from family and partners who chose to fly out to the tour.
Staff shuffle
At the end of last season, Arsenal announced that head of performance Shad Forsythe would be leaving the club after eight years. The American has subsequently joined Borussia Dortmund.
He has effectively been replaced by Tom Allen, who has been promoted to a new role as head of sports science. The Athletic understands Mikel Arteta is also considering adding an on-pitch conditioning coach to complement Allen.
Allen and the rest of Arteta’s staff put Arsenal through a rigorous training regime. The heat was oppressive in London, too — but it was the humidity that made it so tough on the squad, particularly in Florida. Based on the workout they received in America, they should start the new season very fit indeed.
A new arrival
Oleksandr Zinchenko’s arrival gave everyone a huge boost. He travelled to America with Manchester City knowing the move to Arsenal was close.
Technical director Edu was a day late arriving in Florida because he was working on the completion of the deal. His initial intent was to fly to Houston, where City were based, and then accompany Zinchenko to Florida. Ultimately, that proved impractical, and Zinchenko made the journey alone. Upon landing, he was greeted by Arsenal media staff before going on to take medical tests at nearby hospital facilities.
Zinchenko joined Arsenal from Manchester City (Photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
The night before Arsenal’s 4-0 win over Chelsea, Zinchenko underwent the ritual of performing his initiation song. He made the bold choice of an a capella version of “Friday” by Nightcrawlers.
Transfer clauses
Edu spoke at length to The Athletic in Florida about his Arsenal squad-building strategy, and the difficulty the club have had in selling players. Some mitigation arrives with the news that two deals — the sales of Omari Hutchinson and Matteo Guendouzi to Chelsea and Marseille respectively, which both appeared to be for relatively modest fees — include sell-on clauses. If the players thrive with their new clubs and make another move, Arsenal stand to profit.
Big characters
Zinchenko might’ve shown some personality at his initiation but watching the players up close, you become aware that this is a squad which includes several big characters.
Some are unsurprising, such as Xhaka. His influence among the group is obvious.
It’s interesting to think, just a year ago, he was very close to a move to Roma. Even at the start of this summer, there was talk that he might move on. Judging by his behaviour in America, that’s the last thing on his mind: he appears absolutely committed.
It’s clear last season hurt him but he says the time off has allowed him to process the pain.
“During the season you don’t see that a lot because you are in this adrenaline, you’re so focused,” he explains. “But in the holidays you start to see reality: we had something in our hands, and we left it on the side and didn’t take it, and this is painful. It was painful because we were very, very close. In my opinion, it was not the Spurs game or Newcastle game, it was before — the run against Southampton, Brighton, Palace, where we lost three games in a row.
“But this happened, we can’t change anything. I’m not a guy who looks backwards but we have to speak about it, of course. And we can learn from it. We can learn because we are one year older, more experienced as a team as well.”
Xhaka was in high spirits on the US tour (Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Xhaka undertook a lot of media duties on this tour — something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago when his relationship with the fans was so fraught. He looks like a man rehabilitated, and enjoying life at Arsenal again.
Some characters, however, are more surprising. Centre-back Gabriel is not a player fans have heard a great from — partly because of a language barrier — but he is an ebullient bundle of energy; a joker among Arsenal’s growing Brazilian pack. During the game against Orlando City, he could be seen coaching the defence from the sidelines. Clearly, it wasn’t just a friendly to him.
While being primarily a squad player, Cedric carries out an important role off the pitch. Of the Portuguese-speaking contingent, he is the eldest — and as an experienced player, and European champion, is held in high regard. He has already taken on a ‘big brother’ role with Vieira. When the former Porto midfielder faced his first English interview with an external outlet, it was Cedric who offered him reassurance and advice beforehand.
Saliba is also a charismatic guy who has slipped seamlessly into the squad. He speaks good English and appeared relaxed around fans and staff. What’s more, in the flesh, he remains absolutely massive.
Injury issues
Perhaps the only negative story coming out of the tour is that there are still a few injury issues hanging over certain players. Vieira is yet to make his debut for the club having sustained a minor fracture injury to his foot while on international duty. He is however back in light training and should be able to rejoin the main group soon.
Takehiro Tomiyasu is also close, with Arteta confident he could return to full training next week. The situation regarding Tierney is, for now, less clear — but at least Arsenal have the reassurance of having signed Zinchenko as an alternative.
It’s not just among the players that Arteta has had injuries to contend with — his trusted assistant, Albert Stuivenberg, spent the entirety of the tour sidelined, wearing a protective boot and on crutches. The Dutchman, like Vieira, Tierney and Tomiyasu, will be itching to get back on the training pitch as soon as possible.
Five goalkeepers is probably too many
Arsenal took five goalkeepers away with them — Ramsdale, Turner, Leno, Arthur Okonkwo and Runarsson. They left a sixth home — Estonian international Karl Hein, who is recovering from a knee injury.
It’s a big group to work with, and not always hugely practical. Most goalkeeper drills are designed around working in groups of three, so Arsenal’s keepers often had to train in two separate groups.
The situation is likely to look clearer soon. Fulham are still hoping to sign Leno, while the idea remains to send Okonkwo on loan once the extent of Hein’s likely lay-off is known.
Swift departure
Both Arsenal and Chelsea flew home straight after their game in Orlando. Arsenal’s players were instructed to take their washbags and passports with them to the game, and board the coach in their black travel gear.
After the match, the players effectively checked in for their chartered flight before even getting on the coach, meaning they could make a quick getaway. After a slight delay, they were airborne, touching down in London on Sunday morning.
There is no rest for these Arsenal players: a behind-closed-doors friendly follows in midweek, before hosting Sevilla in the Emirates Cup on Saturday.
(Photos: Getty Images; graphic: Sam Richardson)
