How Cesc Fabregas guided Como to Champions League by copying tactics of all his ex-managers, except former Chelsea boss

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CESC FABREGAS is remembered as one of the best midfielders in the history of football, and already poses as one of the brightest young managers in the world.

Fabregas, 39, needed less than two seasons since taking over his first ever coaching job to make history as he led Italian minnows Como to the Champions League for the first time in the club’s 119-year history.

But this comes as no surprise as the Arsenal and Chelsea legend learned from the best ever bosses in the history of the game during a glittering 20-year playing career.

That includes the likes of Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger, Antonio Conte, Vicente del Bosque and Luis Aragones.

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It all started back in 2003 when Fabregas – then a 16-year-old wonderkid – moved to north London from Catalonia after impressing Wenger, 76, who was famous for working with promising young prospects.

After eight successful years with the Gunners – which included 57 goals and 97 assists in 303 appearances as well as FA Cup and Community Shield honours – the former Spain international returned to Barcelona, where he started in La Masia’s famous academy in 1997.

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Fabregas told DAZN: “Arsene Wenger is like a second father to me. Obviously, he worked a lot on transitions, attacking the space, something that is even more important in modern football. I learned a lot from him and want my team to do that.”

And Fabregas combines the tactics he learned from Wenger with control and – especially – patience.

He told ESPN: “What I learned from him [Wenger] the most is the patience you must have with the players. I know that nowadays patience doesn’t exist because coaches are fragile and we are too scared that if you lose two games, you’re out.

“So you always try to compensate that by putting the most experienced players or the best players, or maybe not the ones who deserve it the most. I’m liking a lot working with the young players. And this requires patience as well, because there is ups and downs with a young player.

“You need to put a little bit more effort in the training sessions, more time globally. This is something that I learned, that when you want to develop something, you need patience.”

However, Wenger and Guardiola weren’t completely identical and that worked wonders for Fabregas as the latter was the one that highlighted the importance of a manager being “himself” and sending a clear message to players and staff.

The ex-Manchester City boss maintained more of a distance with players and thus didn’t treat the legendary midfielder “as his son” like Wenger did.

However, Guardiola was the one that taught him the most in terms of tactics.

Fabregas said: “I think, tactically, Pep is the one that I learned the most from. He always studied the opponent. He always knew exactly what they could do and he could give you solutions.

“And this is what I try to bring to the table for the players. They always need help to identify what’s happening on the pitch. And I think Pep helped me a lot in this way to understand different things.”

Meanwhile, Fabregas also played for Spain under two other influential figures in the late great Aragones and Del Bosque, 75, with whom he won back-to-back Euros in 2008 and 2012 as well as the 2010 World Cup.

Aragones gave him freedom and allowed him to be versatile – a principal that he insists on when dealing with his players at Como – while Del Bosque made him feel comfortable by instilling calmness and peace within his game that helped him overcome mistakes he made on the pitch.

Mourinho, 63, then brought him to Chelsea in 2014 and taught him about bravery on the pitch as well as the importance of working on players’ confidence outside of it, which worked wonders as he won his first Premier League title in 2015.

Fabregas said: “What I like the most about him is how he handles the dressing room. How he plays with the head of the players, how he knows how to identify who is in the right mental predisposition to achieve whatever the team needs in that moment.

“He’s very fast at understanding the player, what the team needs at each moment, and who can give them what he needs in order to win games.

“He’s not scared to make changes. I remember sometimes he would make three changes at half-time because he knew exactly in his head how he wanted to achieve different things in the second half.

“And in this case, I think Jose was very, very brave. And he always used to tell me, go with your idea. Once you identify a problem, fix it immediately. Don’t let it pass.”

But it was Mourinho‘s replacement that Fabregas copied the least when he made the plunge in management.

Conte, 57, led the Spaniard to a second Prem and FA Cup honour but his tactics didn’t allow him enough freedom, like he had at Arsenal, Barcelona, Spain and Chelsea under his predecessor.

Fabregas told Coaches’ Voice: “Probably with Conte – tactically and physically – is the coach that I worked more with.

“Tactically, when I speak about this subject, I would say that he always wanted to tell you exactly what you have to do on the pitch and it is not something that I was very, very motivated by.

“Because [of] my intuition and my tactical capacity on the pitch – knowing where to find the space at the right time. Because for me, in football, you cannot tell a player to do the same thing every single time.

“When other teams started to study you and understand how you play it became much more difficult for us to adapt because this was all we knew how to do and that’s why my idea of football is to try and teach my players to be as best as they can in every situation that they can find on a football pitch.

“It’s not easy, it needs a lot of time and dedication and individual meetings and collective meetings but I believe this is the best way for a player to feel powerful on the pitch.”

Fabregas has picked up a combination out of all the esteemed managers he has worked with, but insists on letting his players – especially the likes of Nico Paz, Martin Baturina and Tasos Douvikas – perform freely.

But of course most of his tactical philosophy is based on Wenger and Guardiola that emphasises on structured build-up play, numerical superiority and midfield dominance.

Como, who are set for their first ever Champions League match tonight when they host RB Leipzig at Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia, primarily operate in a 4-3-3 formation focused on short passing sequences and compact midfield spacing.

Fabregas prioritises playing through the middle to facilitate quick ball transitions and loves to maintain a solid defensive shape when out of possession in a 4-1-4-1 formation.

Meanwhile, all his midfielders continuously rotate and take on different roles during the game.

But overall, Fabregas appears to be more of a student of Guardiola as he is innovative and tactically astute while playing with a classic Spanish football style that sees him retaining possession, setting up centrally and looking to break down the opponent’s lines.

And he now shares an important lesson he picked up outside the pitch as he instructed his players to invest their lucrative wages on improving their game and prolonging their career instead of needless luxury, like private jets and fast cars.