The former Bologna star was the standout player for the Italy national team at Euro 2024, and Arsenal thought he was too good to ignore, prompting the Gunners to make a move for him.
Calafiori had been expected to join Juventus, but when Arsenal showed interest, he changed his mind and instantly wanted to move to London.
Having completed the transfer, Calafiori revealed that he had been in contact with Mikel Arteta for several weeks, but he was already sold on the club’s project even without those discussions.
He said, as quoted by the Daily Mail:
‘I spoke for almost two months with the coach (Mikel Arteta) and Edu. They tried to convince me but I was already really convinced to come here.
‘For me it’s the best project that I can have to improve as a player. That’s it.
‘I want to improve, to win trophies. It’s the best project for me because the team is young, the team is strong, it’s really good.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
Calafiori looks prepared to become a key player for us and it will be interesting to see how he performs when competitive football resumes.
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Arteta didn’t need to use hypnosis then. “Look into my eyes, Riccardo”.
Calafoiri says all the right things (as you’d expect from players nowadays) so let’s see how he does when he’s wearing an Arsenal shirt for real.
But some told us that Arteta was a terrible man manager and would go the Mourinho way of always falling out with his players. That he would struggle to attract top players blah blah..
But it seems like that was all rubbish talk from the agenda riders.
🙏😊
Lol
Unless off-the-pitch considerations were too massive, from his perspective at age 22 I would expect the decision to come to the Arsenal would have been a “no-brainer” especially given that there is a reasonable chance for significant playing time.