Why I TURNED DOWN Chelsea & Owe Mikel Arteta EVERYTHING! | Granit Xhaka Exclusive

0:00This is a global production. First of all, I was very, very happy for one guy, and this is Michel Artetta, because he's the guy who brings me to another level where I am today. And without him 2019, I had no chance to come out on myself. Hello, welcome to the Sports Agents. Is this your Sunderland connections here, Nathan, or is this... I mean, if Grandis Jacker was to even know who I was, I mean, what a big moment that would be. Well, as you will hear in a moment, when we play the interview, because we have recorded it, he was well-briefed on... The important things. The important things, yeah. That goal against Chelsea. If I'm a 15th 20-year, for the time. Give it a take, yeah. He's really interested in interviewing you as well.

1:01Yeah, absolutely. He's got so much experience. He's a really good talker. And to be honest, the places that he's been have been really interesting, you know, Arsenal in early Artetta, seeing him at Levycuse and Winner League title, and Levycuse is a big name. But I didn't realise before that that they'd never won a league title before. And then now to be a Sunderland, seeing Macoms on their way to Milan. It's not too bad, isn't it? It isn't, but he will talk about Artetta and Alonzo, and why went to Sunderland, and why he stayed at Sunderland this summer. But he'll also take us back as you will hear in this. You know, to when he was four years old and having to be in charge of his younger brother because his parents were working. So it's a varied interview and covers all sorts of aspects of his life and career. Here he is, Granite Jacques, at the Sunderland captain on the Sports Agent. Granite, thank you very much for doing this. I'm very disappointed that just before we start recording the first thing you mentioned is Nadem scoring for Sunderland. That's Chappers.

2:01Is that what you get when you join Sunderland? The first one of the first things you're told about. As well, yes, for sure. I mean, we get many, many things to be honest, but this one is for sure on the top three, yes. Listen, that's Sunderland's captain talking about me from 2020. Listen, I don't need to say any more chapters, please, you go away. How would you, how would you Granite describe the last year that you've had the 12 months since you joined Sunderland, both personally and as a team? For sure, personally it was a big step again to come abroad, to come to the Premier League, had many doubts from people outside. Can you do it again? He's fit enough, he has the legs, all these things. I got a lot of criticism as well from people. Why is coming from never causing to a promoted team? But for me, from the beginning, I knew what I wanted and is exactly what in hand came out. Don't misunderstand me, of course. The seventh was not a plan, but the plan was to be in the Premier League this season as well.

3:05But I think we deserved the last season was amazing from our side. So through your career, you've been a captain of basically all the clubs that you've been at. What is a leader to you? How do you say, how do you view your own leadership? Do you lead by example, are you a vocal leader? There are times when I watch you on the field and I can see you orchestrating so many things around you. Is this who you've always been or is this somebody that you became? I believe that you're born like a leader, you don't become like a leader. This is a natural leader, I think. This is me, even if I'm home with my family, I like to be an example. I like to lead myself without speaking too much, but showing first on the pitch. Of course, you have different types of days where you need to be more loud or less. But for me, the most important thing is I'm demanding a lot for myself first. Secondly, I demand for my team as well to do a good job. The guys are listening, the guys want to improve.

4:05We have a very young squad as well. I'm just taking my experience from abroad from many different types of clubs, coaches what I learned as well, and trying to bring it here to Sandland. So, when you say you believe you're born a leader, did you feel that you were leading even as a kid? Yeah, I think the story with the key now, maybe in UK everyone knows them. I've heard the key from the house already before. So, I knew that I have a big responsibility about the key. So, went to the school, went to the nursery with the key, knew that I couldn't lose it. Otherwise, we were in big trouble with my brother, and everything started there. They gave me the type of leading as well in a family with my brother together and just being myself and trying to lead the things from H.M. 4. So, you talk about leadership and obviously you're a captain.

5:07Unfortunately, in the history of football, there was that game in 2019, for Arsenal, where your shirt comes off, you walk off the field, and it's something that's probably actually in the minds of many people. Some Arsenal fans actually cheering as they take off their captain, Grammy Jack Amidot, and I'm impressed by being home on that stage. He's going to be replaced by Pocayert, Sackert. He started the last four Grammy-Mid games. And Sackert's reaction, they're not good. Not good at all, he's coachally jared off. Plays arms out. But if you were a captain that day, and there was a player that did that, what would you say to them? How would you be with them? Wow, so good question. I mean, I was a captain of the football club in Arsenal this time as well. And what happened on this day? I think it was a big, big misunderstanding between the fans and myself.

6:09This first three years in Arsenal, there was big chaos in the club. We had many changes with the Arsenal wing as well. He left after 22 years. When the new phase is in a dressing room, the dressing room was not always easy as well. And yeah, when you're a captain, you need to take a lot of good things, but as well bad things. And yeah, 2019 I got what I was the one guy who, people were speaking a lot about me, about the mistakes, about the red cards, about the yellow cards, and everything was negative in the club, granite's fault. Everything was positive, but others was good. And yeah, I call it like a misunderstanding. I believe that what I did was not good for my side for sure not, but as well from a fan side not. If I can change this time in this moment, I would, but this moment helped me for the next couple of years a lot. And that's why I think who I am today is because of this day. You answered the question well, but you didn't necessarily answer it the way I thought you would.

7:12Just because I would like to know, for example, if this happened on the weekend against Arsenal from one of your own teammates, how would you manage that situation now as their captain? I believe in my loan. I will leave him in this moment alone because he has a reason behind. And this is what the people don't see. And I had my reason as well. So of course, I didn't speak about the reason yet, because there was so many, many things. And I'm more than happy to keep it on the side if it's possible, but it's not easy. If you have 60,000 people against you, kill yourself. That's called it like this. You're not good enough. Others are better and all these things. And you can do it in a different way, but not like this. I often think, granite, through the years of doing this job and being a fan and talking to footballers and people within football, that everything else that goes on within a football club or even within a player's lives, does kind of get forgotten by us, the fans.

8:16And I include myself in this. It's sometimes an expectation of footballers to be robots and forget about everything else. It's difficult and you are completely right, but this was our choice. I started to kick the ball with four. So I knew from the age of four that people will speak good, we speak bad, whatever. Some of them they like you, some of them not. But of course, in the end, we are human beings, like everyone else. And this is what the people may be from outside of forget. We have our problems as well as home. You are not feeling well today. You are sick. Whatever can happen everything. But in the end, we need to smile. In this 90 minutes, we need to smile in front of the cameras. We can't always say what we wish. You know what this world is. But how I say, sometimes you need to try to put it on the side and just to accept things, what comes from outside. Moving on from when that happened,

9:16the three environments you have been in at club level since then, Mikhail Arthet at the start of his rebuild and that environment that he created when you were there, and Javi Alonso then at Bialava Cousin. And now what you have at Sunder with Rijisla Breeze, are that they are all very different types of men, I assume. But are there environments that they have created similar? One hundred percent yes. The dressing rooms are the same. And I believe and I am a big believer about the dressing room. If the dressing room is right, you don't have these problems. Because the dressing room with Mikhail was amazing. With Javi was amazing. So you had these young players, you have the experienced players. The energy was there. The commitment was that the desire was there to work. And then you come here, I just said before, my first step in the dressing room had exactly the same feeling. Here we can build something big. Because of this mentality, of the desire, of the people around who wants to work.

10:18And you find always lazy people, don't misunderstand me, but you pay for it as well. When you have this type of dressing room or these people in the dressing room inside. So you felt that did you? As soon as you joined Sunderland and walked into that dressing room, you felt that same feeling. Straight away, the first step I did in the dressing room and I saw the players, I saw the phases of them. I had a very positive feeling and I knew exactly how we can build something big here. When you look back at say your time at Arsenal then, do you think the change in the dressing room is what led them to be more competitive in terms of attire to race and ultimately winning the league last year? First of all, you need a coach who has the power and who has the mindset, the mentality, the courage to put this place in the dressing room.

11:19And it's not easy, it was not easy for me, but I'm not speaking only about the dressing room. I'm speaking about all the trains ground. I believe the people behind the scenes are the most important people. And when meekl came, he put maybe 60-70 people in one room. There was chairs everywhere and it told us like you guys are looking at chaos from outside. So the first thing we took a chair, we put it in a right place and he said to us, I want you guys to be like this, organized, to be lovely with each other, to know the names of the old building who is working with you. And this shows me as well about the respect between each other. Because you can make me stay on this level, this is part of the job, but in the end it's about the human being and the respect between each other. I know we've talked about that, you have that at Lavercuse and you now have that at Sunderland. But setting the right culture seems such an obvious thing to those of us who aren't with art and then a full book of it.

12:23Seems like the most normal thing in the world. Now everybody's in there, make sure everybody's in there, it's so unsavable. But it's rarer, it's rarer than you would think, is it? Yeah, to find the right people in the dressing room is the most important and the most difficult part, I think, from the club site. Because you can find the quality, you have always good quality players, you have the money you pay the fee, but the right people, and to get the right puzzle, I believe this is the most difficult thing. I think that's completely fair, you know, because for the places that I've been where it hasn't gone well, it's because people aren't necessarily pulling in the same direction, everybody has talent. But I don't know if you'd agree with this granite, but through my career, when you're winning, everybody feels the same, when you're losing, everybody has a different idea about why you're not winning games at football. That's in the worst case scenario, when you start to find the wrong characters, then you'll pull in and opposite directions. I think that's when things kind of fall apart, would you agree? Absolutely, and even more when you have 15 or 16 new phases in one summer, we are not speaking here about 16 new players in seven years.

13:27We are speaking about 16 new players in the same summer. And to get the connection as quick as possible, this is a big part of the club, big part of the coach and the staffs to get the connection between each other. How did you know what, when you mentioned it like that, how did you manage a group of 16, 17 new players into Sunderland to create that bond? Because it must be stuff away from the training field as well. So first of all, the owner and the sport director, they knew exactly what they need. So they are taking the quality for sure, but the most important is the human being, the person who is the person behind the scenes, what he can bring to this new dressing room, to this new football club. And then of course, he's a job from the coach, the staff, what is well from us leaders, the experience players, for example, might have like a captain, to get the connection between each other. We have French speaking, we have German speaking here, we have English, we have guys from Africa.

14:31Every is different culture, different mentality, everyone grew up different, but the connection of all the football on the pitch of the pitch is the key. Somebody once told me that when, I don't know what I tell you, it was Paul Warnert-Rotherham. I do mention this every now and then. I think he may have took over mid-season, but he realized at the end of the season that nobody really knew why everybody else was playing football. What was their reason for playing football? So he had a barbecue at the start of the following season, so that people could talk about their families, talk about that upbringing, talk about what had happened to their parents or who they were married to or whatever. Everybody then understood what the motivation was for playing football, because people will have different reasons and different backgrounds. Absolutely, that's why I'm calling as well players, yes, what as well, the families is important, you know, to have this connection between the misses what we have, the girlfriends, whoever is married and not with the kids.

15:36I think this connection is important as well, not just as players to understand each other very well, you know. So what is your motivation then, because this last say few months, there were rumors about you potentially going to Chelsea to be part of, to be linking up with Javier Lanzo again, the manager where you went invintable, you know, never cruising became the Champions Levercuzin. What's your motivation right now? Why are you still a son under year on after helping them qualify for Europe and you can sort of turn your back on projects at Chelsea, which I'm sure many people will be excited about. So from the beginning last season when I signed the contract here, there was a plan behind the scenes and the plan was to stick to this project, to believe in this project and to work for this project. And I always say to myself and to the people around, I didn't came here for one season. Of course, it's a big privilege for myself that the Javier Lanzo, why I walked with, he wants me again, it's a big privilege that the football club at Chelsea want a player nearly with 34 years old.

16:38But I have still the contact with all my coaches, doesn't mean like when you have the contact with the coach that there is something behind. There was something behind, yes for sure, but my commitment to the club was straight for it. And when I spoke with an owner of Sandeland, I told him from the beginning, I don't have the feeling that this project is done yet. And this is my motivation, that's why they took me here and that's why I'm still here to get to the next step. I want to enjoy the European football, but this football club with the fans and hopefully we can get more after this season. So a question actually about Javier Lanzo, and also I've got to say by the way, I think Mick Alata said that he sees you as a manager one day. I do kind of feel like I'm talking to a manager. I don't know if that's an insult or a compliment. That's a compliment. It's a compliment, we'll call that compliment. But the other side of things, I remember speaking with you after a game against Bayern Munich, I think it was two seasons ago. And you'd had a start to the season where you'd conceded quite a few goals then against Bayern.

17:39I think it was either one one or possibly Nell Nell. I think it might be one one. And you said something which is quite American, you said defense wins championships. How does that feel talking about that levercuse in team compared to Javier Lanzo's side that we've seen in these first few weeks where it seems like the focus is on the attack as opposed to sort of more defensive minded ideas? Yeah, I remember the first game when I went to levercuse with Javier Lanzo, we played in Real Sociedad in Spain, the friendly game. And Javi starts the back four. But the feeling on the pitch was not right. So I went to Javier, I said Javi. I think that this team, back four, we will struggle a lot. You say why? I say, I think that we don't have these character players for this back four. And he changed. And this is for me, shows a big big human being from a coach side. Because he can tell me, listen, run it. I'm the coach and I make the decision. He's not you. But he wanted, or he took me as well to levercuse him because of my experience, because of the work what I did in Arsland with Mikael, the small details in them.

18:45Yeah, after this everyone knows that we won the league, unbeaten, we went to the Europa League final, we won the German Cup after 32 years. After one under 20 years, we won the league. And even here with Sunderland, why we finished the semifix, because we didn't concede a lot of goals. If you all see the relegated teams, they all conceded a lot of goals. And I think this is the most important thing in the Premier League. As long you don't concede a lot, you will win games. Coming back to the Premier League, has it changed from when you were last in it? Have you noticed big differences? And what are physically and mentally the biggest challenges for you on the field? To be honest, changed in two years when I was in Germany, the Premier League changed. It was already a little bit starting about the set pieces before I left, but the half of the feeling that now the set pieces is the key. And if I call the set piece, not just the corner of the free kicks, it's even the throw-winds now, the long throw-winds,

19:48even Arsenal Premier League winner, they put the ball inside. If they go for long-bought kick with Raya, they put the ball to Harvard. They're not trying to play 500 passes like they did before. And then it's about to win. Doesn't matter how you play, looks good or not, you want to win. And this is the most important thing in football. You are there for winning, not to show the people how good you are playing, but you lose games. So physically, when you're on the field now, when you come off, I don't know what your average distance is. Are you feeling physically, mentally exhausted? Both? Where are the challenges? Of course, physically and mentally, you have to be ready for this league. And if you're not ready, don't come here, because you get smashed. Let's go. For me, when the owner called me and said, you want to come back and say, Kirill, if I'm not ready, I will not come back. So I knew how it's primarily because I've been here for seven years. So for me, for my mindset was,

20:51granted, if you're not ready to run and to defend and to fight, physical, but as well mental, don't come back because you have no chance. Just before we talk more about Sunday this season, as you saw Arsenal, I'm assuming that you saw Arsenal lifted Premier League trophy last season, did you have mixed emotions or what did you feel watching them achieve something that you came so close to? First of all, I was very, very happy for one guy, and this is Michel Artheta, because he's the guy who brings me to another level where I am today. And without him 2019, I had no chance to come out on myself. And then after, I'm more than happy for the players I played with because they deserve all the respect, all the work, because I know how much they struggled in the beginning and how much work was behind the scenes to get the trophy where they got in the last season.

21:53So now, the fun part. So we will see a macum in Milan, we will see Sunderland playing in Europe. And a lot of people from the outside, I'm not going to point at Chapers, but I might say Chapers' name, I sketch go about Sunderland being able to have a good season domestically and in Europe. Some of the thing is can probably be a bit too difficult. What do you think the keys will be for Sunderland to be able to build on what happened last season? Obviously football isn't linear, success isn't linear. But what do you think will be key from your side to be ready for this season? Just before you answer that, Grudnic, I have a word to the media. I am aware of people saying that. I'm not aware of my self. I'm not aware of myself saying that. Please answer Grudnic for a ticket. The season will be more difficult than last season for Surya's. For Surya's because now the opponents will take a serious. Last season they think, yeah, come on, they promote a team and we go to Sunderland and we take the three points and we go home.

22:54Last season we took 33 points at home. So this is our house and I always say to the team, nobody comes in the house so easily. Of course with a rope a league, with all the competitions, what we have, we have 60 games minimum. Are we ready for it? For sure, yes. We have five or six new faces in our team again. The squad is bigger, what we need for the future as well. And you want to finish the semis again? Of course if it's possible, yes. But our first goal is to go game by game, to stay humble, to work like we did last season. And in the end of the season let's see where we are. And this is the kind of week coming up. This is why you will play the game. It's Arsenal and Europe and Manchester City. Yeah, you have Arsenal, then you have a rope a league, then you have City, then we go to national team. You have every four days you have a game. And this is the most important thing in football because even if you lose one game for this later you can show yourself that you are ready for the next one.

23:58You don't need to wait another week like we did last season. So you can say in both ways, can be positive, but as well for sure can be negative if you are not ready for it. Do you want to be a manager? I mean, neither am I related to what Mikhail Artetra has said about your qualities to do that. Is that the end goal when you eventually stop playing? Yeah, I got my license already, there will be an A license, I'm finished. I just need the WIFAPRO, where is the highest coaching badge, but I can do this when I'm finished. But I spoke with many coaches what I had as well and they say to me, granite, stay on the pitch as long as possible because the other part is different. What do you think you will relish about being a manager? The tactical side of it? Tactical for sure, but I think I will be a coach who demands a lot. My players need to work, they need to run, they need to bite if they can and they need to go to the limit. Yeah, I'm not coming out retirement.

25:00I think it's right to say that you should stay in the game for as long as you can. But obviously people have their different jump-off points in their moments and to mention now to you, you say 34 years of age, are you excited for another season? Or is it more so just you are being a really good professional and you're preparing for another season? I always say to myself, if the hunger and the desire is gone, I will stop the football tomorrow. Even if I have another two or three years contract, I will stop tomorrow. I'm not doing this because I have to be here, I'm doing this because I love what I'm doing. And I desire the hunger to improve myself, to achieve things with this football club with these players. It's bigger than ever and I never felt so good than I'm feeling at the moment. That seems a brilliant place to end it, granite. Thank you very much for joining us. It's giving us your time this afternoon. Thank you as well guys. Thank you so much. And for the rest of the season. Thank you. Thank you very much. All the best. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

26:00Thank you very much for joining us with the Sondland legend and granite jacket on the shirt. Correct. I like that. I like that. I kept that in your back pocket. If you didn't use it, I was going to use it. You're definitely not coming out of retirement to play for him. Are you serious? You said work hard. It was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Apparently working hard is a skill and maybe I don't have it anymore. I don't remember that from my KBR. Drop us a comment below on anything you've heard or you can email us at sportsagentsatglobal.com or our social media handle is at sportsagents, all of the pass episodes on YouTube, global player or wherever you get your pods and we'll be back on Monday. KBR is always such an easy joke for backers. Of course. It was a joke. I mean, it was a joke. Nobody was a joke. That was a joke about like six years ago. This has been a global production.