Gaël Clichy (left) only spent a year at Manchester City with Pep Guardiola, but it completely changed his idea of the game. Photo: Reuters/Toby Melville
It's been almost two decades since Gael Clichy made his Premier League debut for Arsenal, and all those years later, he still remembers that conversation with Arsene Wenger in great detail. Arsenal beat Birmingham City 3-0 and Clichy started on the left flank as a teenager with a new face, and he approached Wenger immediately after the main match.
“I turned to him during the warm-up,” Clichy recalls. “I really wanted to get feedback from him. But he asked me two questions: “Do you like football?” I said yes. “And you gave everything?” I said yes. He said, “I'm fine with that.”
Clichy is now 38 years old, and as he prepares to enter the world of management, these two principles still live in his mind. “There are so many details now that we didn’t have in those days, but that will always remain,” Clichy told Telegraph Sport. “Give everything, respect your team, enjoy football.”
Clichy is one of the lucky few lucky enough to play alongside Wenger and Pep Guardiola, perhaps the two most innovative managers of their generation. “They both changed English football,” says Clichy. “I was lucky enough to play for them.”
Gaël Clichy made 12 Premier League appearances during Arsenal's Invincible. Season Credit: Phil Noble/PA Photo
For years, he has been planning this next step in his football career, reflecting on the lessons he has learned from these great managers and preparing for the transition from player to manager. Now, ahead of a reunion with Wenger at this weekend's Game4Ukraine charity match (Wenger will be his manager again), the former Arsenal and Manchester City defender feels ready for the jump. Some players fear the end of their playing career, but Clichy is eager to embrace change. “I'm looking forward to the future,” he says.
To be clear, Clichy's playing days are not officially over. “If a good project comes along, I'll consider playing another year,” he says. But he knows his new chapter is about to begin and he can't wait to see what he can achieve in the dugout after years of success on the field.
A brilliant playing career is no guarantee of coaching fame, but Clichy's resume is certainly impressive: with Arsenal and City, he has won three Premier League titles, two League Cups and one FA Cup. He is “invincible”, having participated in Arsenal's unbeaten campaign in 2003/04, as well as the winner of the Turkish Championship with Istanbul Basaksehir. He played 20 times for France and played with coaches such as Wenger, Guardiola, Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini, Didier Deschamps and Laurent Blanc.
“I learned so much,” he says. “I know that I will start as a manager from scratch and I will have to build myself. But I already have my philosophy and game plan.
Clichy won two more Premier League titles with Man City but left at the end of Pep Guardiola's season at the club. Photo: EPA/LINDSEY PARNABY
Clichy's dream of becoming a manager began in 2016 when he first faced Guardiola at City. “The year I met Pep, his first year at City, I changed my mind,” says Clichy. “He took my football world and just turned it upside down. Now that I watch football, I can't distance myself from his philosophy. It's so intense and so clear that I can't see anything else. It was great for me.
“I was getting older and I knew I couldn't compete at a certain level. I really watched what Pep did, how he interacted with the players, how he behaved with his staff. He showed me many examples of what it means to be a leader.”
As for his time with Wenger, it was a different era with a different level of detail. However, the human side of management remains as important as ever. “Arsène was able to turn players into world champions,” says Clichy. “He was able to bring in a multi-thousand-pound player and make him a £20 million player. It's been a hell of a success.”
Clichy has spent the last few seasons as a Servette player in the Swiss league, and also trained for a week last year. With tactical ideas inspired by his time with Guardiola, Clichy could see himself influencing and shaping his team's style.
“I was able to change the structure of the team and saw that my ideas worked, but with less quality than you have in the Premier League,” he says. “I had the opportunity to change the way we played and teach players to do what I needed. I realized that I like it.”
Stylistically, Clichy matches the approach of Guardiola and Mikel Arteta, the current managers of his two former English teams. He was delighted with last year's title race (“I wish Arsenal had won”) as well as City's “sensational” treble. “The way City have been doing for 12 years,” he says. “This is an example of how you should behave.”
The two teams will meet again on Sunday at the Community Shield and Clichy hopes they will once again face each other for the biggest trophies of the season. “Even if I wasn't the top guy on this team, I'm invincible and no one can take that away from me,” he says. “I kept winning trophies with City. It's great to see the two teams fighting now.”
If all goes according to plan and if he can take advantage of the opportunities that will no doubt present him, Clichy hopes to one day be in those conversations himself. “I really love this game,” he says. “I need to find a way to share my knowledge.”
Tickets for Game4Ukraine's charity match at Stamford Bridge are still available at www.game4ukraine.com. You can watch the game exclusively in the UK. Ireland on Sky Max and listen exclusively on TalkSport.
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