Cesc Fabregas is widely considered as one of the most interesting young managers around Europe and it’s easy to imagine that many of the top European clubs will try to hire him in the near future, probably next summer. After his full first Serie A season in charge of Como, where they ended up in the top 10 of the table, Inter and Bayer Leverkusen tried to sign the Spanish manager but both failed. Surprising? Not really. Not because they didn’t offer what he wanted but mainly because he knows that at Como, he can make all the steps necessary and has all the resources and trust he needs. The top teams can wait.
The former Arsenal, Barcelona and Chelsea midfielder sat down with Kate Scott and was the latest guest of “Kickin’ It” on Paramount+, where he talked about both his player and coaching experiences and also what he hopes can achieve in the future. Fabregas talked extensively about how the game has changed in this new era.
“I understand that you need to take care of the players a hundred percent. There is much more information now than what we used to have before, but you need to live the moment and you don’t know what will happen in three years,” he said. “If I can play this year 70 games, which I did quite a few seasons between national teams and again because before there was also the League Cup, the FA Cup, the Champions League, the Euros, the World Cup, everything existed there. Nowadays, it’s true that maybe the calendar is a bit more congested with the Nations League and a couple of more games here, but there were a lot of games. So yes, it’s changed. Maybe the intensity of the game is faster now, but before it was more physical.”
How Como 1907 are chasing Wrexham-esque Hollywood dreams with glamour and goals
Francesco Porzio
On Messi and Arsenal
Speaking about his time at Barcelona, where he grew up as a player before moving to Arsenal, he also met a young Lionel Messi, who just moved from Argentina.
“I remember the first day he came because he sat right next to me and they told us that there is this boy coming from Argentina making a trial and he’ll be with us for a couple of weeks,” he said. “But yeah, he had immediate impact because he didn’t speak a word, he didn’t, he was super shy, he sat down. We were a good group, I have to say in that generation. And after that, on the pitch, he started talking straight away, very, very fast. I always tell that story that there was one against one situations, and at the beginning of the training, and I was quite good defending one against one at that age, after, when I grew up, not so much, but when he was facing me, you see a small boy, he was really, really tiny.”
Also, talking about his Arsenal days, Fabregas reflected on when he decided to go back to the Premier League but joined Chelsea instead of his beloved team.
“At the beginning, when I was going to leave, I thought, I’m going back to Arsenal. That was my thought and what I expected at that moment. They had a week, Arsene Wenger had a week to respond, to take the option or not, they never came back. They stayed quiet. So there was only one way and one choice, and that was Chelsea and Jose Mourinho because he told me everything that I needed to hear at that moment of my career and he made it happen. The fans were outstanding with me, outstanding. I couldn’t be more grateful. We had a great feeling connection straight away. But of course I’m very competitive and when I was the captain of Arsenal, you dislike all the London clubs.”
How Fabregas ended up at Como
After playing at the highest levels of elite soccer with Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea and AS Monaco, during the 2022-23 season, Fabregas moved to Italy and played for Como in his last season before retiring from professional soccer. When he arrived at Como, he also became a shareholder of the club alongside former Arsenal and Barcelona teammate Thierry Henry.
“I have to say I’m so grateful and lucky because a guy of his experience and me as a young manager, we have to remember he was my coach at Monaco for two, three weeks, but he brought me to the club, so he was already my coach and I look up to him as a player, also as a coach for what he’s done also. And I’m very lucky because when he comes, he’s come to the training room, let’s say four or five times, and of course, he speaks to players. He’s never really given a speech, which one day maybe I would like him to, but for me, he’s constantly texting me before and after every game.”
After he retired, Fabregas immediately became the manager of the Under-23 Como team, a few months before taking the job of the first team, without taking any kind of hesitation.
“I didn’t finish my career the way I dreamed of. Let’s kind of put it this way, and I was just so hungry. I felt so convinced that I wanted to be a coach. I had everything in my head. I was already preparing for the last four years before I retired. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and when you feel so excited about something and you get an opportunity straight away after you finish your career, I took it not knowing the demands of the job, you can have kind of expectations”.
In his first season at Como as caretaker manager, he earned Serie A promotion, and in his first full season in charge, he ended up in 10th place in the standings with the newly promoted team, showing not only a great level of soccer but also developed some young players such as Real Madrid loanee Nico Paz. Despite only coaching Como for less than two seasons, Fabregas immediately attracted interest from multiple clubs like German side Bayer Leverkusen that saw in Fabregas the perfect replacement of Xabi Alonso, who joined Real Madrid in the summer 2025 while Inter also tried to appoint him after the farewell of Simone Inzaghi in the summer but then decided to sign Cristian Chivu after both the manager and especially the club turned down every kind of approach.
Como are owned by the Djarum Group, an Indonesian conglomerate led by brothers Robert Budi Hartono and Michael Bambang Hartono, who bought the club back in 2019 with their London-based company, SENT Entertainment. The Hartono brothers have a combined net worth of approximately $48 billion, according to Forbes, and the club is run by Mirwan Suwarso, who represents the ownership at the club.
Now, the expectation is to see Como clinching European spots after an impressive summer of 2025 with their transfer business.
“When in Europe? Hopefully soon. We will give our best. I’m very prudent with my players and my words because we’re very, very young. There are lots of ups and downs with young players, but we’re trying to be consistent,” he said. “Now. We’ve done, let’s say a third of the championship. If we do the same third that we’ve done now in the next two, I’m sure we will do it because we are [on pace for] 72 points. And I think with 72 points you make Europe for sure. But again, it’s all up to us and we need to keep going. We need to keep believing, we need to keep working. This is only the beginning.”
