After Arsenal’s 5-1 Champions League win over Sporting CP in Lisbon last month, a special visitor joined them in the dressing room.
Former right-back Cedric Soares, back living in the city he spent 17 years in as a Sporting academy graduate, is a free agent after his four-and-a-half-year stint at Arsenal came to an end in the summer.
The 33-year-old is training with a club in Portugal to stay fit as he waits on the right offer to resume his career, but he was not going to miss the chance to watch his two former teams compete — or catch up with Oleksandr Zinchenko, the successor to his vacated No 17 shirt.
“It was funny,” Cedric tells The Athletic. “Zinny called me at the beginning of the season and said, ‘Brother, can I take your number?’.
“I said, ‘Obviously, but be careful because this number weighs heavy!’
“He hadn’t been playing so much because of injuries so when I saw him I said, ‘I told you it was heavy!’. Zinny is a really good guy so he loves to joke around.”
Mikel Arteta presented Cedric and Mohamed Elneny with signed jerseys as a memento of their time at the club after the final game of last season.
Cedric has been back in the inner sanctum twice already, having also been invited to spend some time with his former team-mates when they hosted another of his previous clubs Southampton in October.
Being an honorary member of the squad is something he grew used to in his final two years at Arsenal. The Portuguese defender played just 244 minutes in that time but he was a senior figure in a young dressing room in which only Elneny, Jorginho and Thomas Partey were also over the age of 30.
Even though his contributions on the pitch had come to a virtual halt, he still had a leadership role to play as one of the team captains, something that was voted for by his team-mates.
“It means they trust you and trust your opinion,” says Cedric.
“I really had to fight for my space at Arsenal but I think I got my recognition and my space inside the club. Obviously, there was the last two seasons where I didn’t play as much. My job was to keep myself fit and to work as hard as possible in training. Then the rest is the rest. I can’t really control if I play or not play. But it was good because I saw the project and I was still involved in a way.
“It was hard because I left a lot of friendships and I worked so hard to build the image (of who I was). It’s not something that you build in one day. You can easily come, work for a month and then stop but if you work over the years people go, ‘This guy is always there, on time, working hard and when he’s called to perform he’s helping the group. Over five years you can’t fake it.”
Cedric was Arteta’s second signing as manager in January 2020, joining on a six-month loan from Southampton that was made permanent later that summer.
Mikel Arteta signed Cedric early on in his tenure as he attempted to improve a defence that was conceding too many goals (Ryan Jenkinson/MB Media/Getty Images)
He joined eight games into the Arteta era, which passed its fifth anniversary earlier this month, meaning he is one of only a handful to have witnessed the evolution of this Arsenal team and Arteta himself.
“Mikel was young too when he arrived at the club,” Cedric says.
“He had his idea but he had to teach a completely new squad about that idea. I think, over time, he improved in how he passed over the idea and he also got more experience and adapted the game. It’s not exactly the same idea as five years ago.
“Over time he improved on the man-management as well. I think he has a much closer relationship with the players now. He chose most of them. That helps because he believes more in the players and I think the players feel that, so they give it back as well.”
Cedric says he was already very tactically minded when he arrived at Arsenal and rarely stopped giving commands and information, but he has a better understanding of the bigger picture for his time at Arsenal.
“Mikel changed the way I see football. I would say it’s on another level tactically,” says Cedric.
“You really have to see the (numerical) advantage. When it is there and when it is not there, it means it is somewhere else on the pitch. In that way, I really improved my tactical view of the game and because I worked so long with Mikel I watch the game through his eyes a bit. Obviously, I have my ideas, but he teaches you to see it automatically and instinctively because you have to decide quickly on the pitch. He teaches everything.
“Now, when I’m watching a game, I say, ‘Don’t go there because of this or that on the other side’. I’m thinking to myself, ‘That’s Mikel’.”
Cedric lived through Arteta’s difficult start when Arsenal finished eighth in his first two seasons and then missed out on the Champions League late on in his third year.
Arteta was pragmatic early on, switching to a back three to try to stem the flow of goals, but there were growing pains, severe ones, when he tried to adapt to a brand of possession football.
It was only in 2022-23 that Arsenal made the leap to being an elite team, vindication of the decision to afford him time for his vision to embed in the minds of the players.
“I remember speaking with Declan (Rice) when he arrived and after training he came to talk to me,” says Cedric.
“I was putting on my boots and he came to me and said, ‘Brother, I don’t know how to do it. It is just too many things to think. He wants me to receive with this foot and move there at the same time. It’s hard’.
“I told him I remember because we all have been there. My advice was to just try to flow. Mikel doesn’t expect you to understand everything in one session or two sessions. Don’t forget what brought you here. It means you already have your quality, now you just have to adapt your quality to Mikel’s idea.
“It will take time, but he will tell you if a player cannot go here or there. If it’s wrong, he will correct you again and with time you will understand. Correct, correct, correct. Then suddenly it becomes your habits.”
Being immersed in such an environment led to a group of five players, including Cedric, starting their coaching journey with the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) in 2022.
He completed his UEFA A licence course in the summer. Granit Xhaka, a close friend of his, was part of that cohort and the Bayer Leverkusen midfielder is someone who Cedric may cross paths with in the future.
“Me and Granit are both coaching once a week to make sure we keep the rhythm and don’t forget what we were told,” he says.
“Granit is very direct, like me. There is no fuss when you speak to him. I was joking with him who would be the first coach and the assistant out of the two of us but he said he couldn’t listen to me!”
Cedric has a clear passion for coaching and hopes to stay in football when he retires. It gives him a different perspective on how Arteta’s coaching staff have combined to develop the team.
“Carlos Cuesta does the work on the defensive organisation and I think the idea has got a lot stronger,” says Cedric.
“He is not doing the same role as Steve Round (ex-assistant who left last summer). Steve was an experienced guy who knew the game and when he said certain things you could tell he had the experience of being a player. Carlos is someone who works with the players and if someone says to do something another way, then he will listen but make sure what he still wants is there.
“The team is different now. There were a few more experienced players (in 2022-23) but we pressed even more in that season. We pressed constantly.
“I think they can play in any context now. Now there is not just one plan, they are able to switch it in the game and the players know exactly if a player goes here then the space is there or if the press isn’t working then we do this. It doesn’t need to come from the manager as much and I think this is what he wanted from the start. That was his vision.”
It was the second half of the 2020-21 season when things started to click for Arteta. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was stripped of the captaincy, while Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka both became regulars.
“And I started to play,” says Cedric, laughing, but it is true that his re-entry into the team did coincide with a surge in form.
It helped him win over some fans who had written him off after making only 22 starts in all competitions during his first 18 months.
He started 14 of the final 17 league games during the 2021-22 season and scored on the final day against Everton. It was his most consistent run of his 64 appearances for Arsenal but it proved to be short-lived.
“I was playing good and finished on a high with my goal against Everton,” he says.
“I had a couple of offers that summer but I was happy and started the pre-season well. At the end of it, the manager decided to try Ben (White) there. It was difficult as it was me, him and (Takehiro) Tomiyasu. If there are two of you then you can play some games. Mikel explained it to me but it was still hard.”
Cedric made just two Premier League appearances from the bench in the first half of that season as Arsenal racked up 50 points from a possible 57. They were five points clear of Manchester City with a game in hand as the January transfer window shut, but Cedric made a deadline-day loan move to Fulham.
Arsenal’s late-season collapse is widely attributed to the injuries suffered by William Saliba and Tomiyasu, with Rob Holding failing to replicate the Frenchman’s level. Had Cedric remained in the building, White may well have moved inside to centre back, with Cedric coming in at right back.
“I was going to Fulham as Marco Silva knew me and wanted to buy me but they couldn’t agree the financials,” he says. “We were first in the league and Mikel said to me I was going at the best moment but I am not someone who is happy to sit on their money and not play so I decided to still go on loan.
“I was thinking that in March and April time they would need players with experience, so when they got injured just after I left it was frustrating, as I think I would have played. There was no way to bring me back.”
Cedric was around for the duration of last season’s title push, however, and he sought to use his experience to support his team-mates when things threatened to implode.
Cedric was a popular member of the Arsenal dressing room (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
“In tough moments after a bad game, I tried to make sure the players did the simple things well, even with the ones who didn’t play,” he says.
“He may be upset with the manager but is he pushing in training or is he relaxing? Can I give him a word before training? Suddenly the guy’s training well and the manager is like, ‘Wow, I thought this guy would be walking today’.”
“In December when we lost a few games I could see Bukayo (Saka) being a little shy. I said to him this is not the time, you need to keep going and playing with courage.
“He is a great boy who listens a lot but I was behind him after every game saying, ‘Don’t just do it this game, do it the next, and the next’. He is so consistent for a young winger and that is not easy to do.
“I don’t think this team relies on one player, which is a good thing to me. If Bukayo is not producing his magic then (Gabriel) Martinelli can or someone else does.”
Saka, like many of his team-mates returned from the mid-season break with a new lease of life. Arsenal recovered from a run of just one win in five at the end of 2023 to produce 16 victories in their final 18 games, scoring 54 goals and conceding only nine times.
It left many wondering what magic Arteta had worked. “In Dubai, the training is always more relaxed,” says Cedric.
“We still train and do stuff like some set pieces but it wasn’t always about football.
“All the families being there together having dinner really brought the team together. One dinner, he gave everyone a piece of paper and asked them to write down what value and attribute they were bringing to the team every single day. What was the value they added? We got to read them all and that was special.”
It has been six months without a club for Cedric but he still looks in peak condition.
“Obviously, my idea is to try to finish the badges while I’m playing, but my main target is still to play. I think it’s too early now to retire. I’m fit and, thank God, I have had no serious injuries.
“When you have not played, the other teams have doubts. How is he? Is he playing good? Why didn’t he play?
“I wanted to immediately find a good project. I had some stuff in the beginning of the market which I didn’t take and then I had some things I was not really excited about. Now I had this break, I want to start as soon as possible.”
(Top photo: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
