Gilberto: “I’m like a father to Denilson”
February 25, 2007
A couple of Gilberto related articles today, one from Arsenal.com on how Gilberto is like a “father figure” to Denilson at the moment:
Gilberto has been both a ‘father figure’ and team-mate to Denilson this season.
The Brazilian midfielder has done everything possible to help his younger compatriot settle at Arsenal and has been impressed by the return he’s seen on the pitch.
Denilson, 19, only arrived from Sao Paulo in August but has been one of the stars of this season’s Carling Cup run.
This is despite not yet having mastered the English language, a situation Gilberto remembers all too well.
“I just make sure he is happy at the Club and that he does not feel scared of his new life,” said Gilberto. “It’s difficult not speaking the language in a new country. That’s very, very hard. I’m trying to do with Denilson what Edu did with me.
“I’m telling him everything I can about things at the Club, about London and about the Premiership. But he has settled in so very well – and very quickly too.”
“It would be the same for any English player who went to Brazil. Until they learnt the language they would find it very hard. Denilson is trying very hard, he talks to other players and that’s nice to see.”
Gilberto remembers first hearing of Denilson’s talents while away on international duty. The Arsenal vice-captain heard rave reviews and is delighted to see how quickly the youngster has become an asset to Arsène Wenger’s first-team.
“The first time I heard about him was from the physio of the Brazil team,” said Gilberto. “He told me Arsenal might be interested in him [Denilson]. Everybody told me good things about the player and he has confirmed everything that I heard.
“He is just one of many very good young players here, which is nice to know.
“The others in the squad are young but they have already shown fantastic footballing ability and fantastic character,” he added.
“When you are that age you can sometimes be scared to play with name players. I know I was scared when I was 18 and 19 and playing in the first team. But they have taken their chance.
“It is amazing how quickly. And I am very happy about that. They are quality. Sometimes it needs games to get confidence and the Carling Cup has given them fantastic experience.
“There’s been big pressure on them but they handle it very well. The future of Arsenal looks bright.”
And one mostly about Denilson, but how he Gilberto and Baptista are fitting into Arsenal.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has developed a youth scouting web so sophisticated and far-reaching that the sound of a three-year-old taking his first tentative stab at a ball in a Japanese alpine meadow would bring the arrival of at least two talent-spotters in Gunners’ tracksuits. Yet even men who leave nothing to chance can sometimes reap the benefit of plain old luck.
And how lucky was Wenger in the signing of the brilliant young Brazilian Denilson, whom he discovered through a classic case of serendipity. Unconvinced by another young Brazilian, Ramon, during five days at Arsenal’s London Colney training base, Wenger went to watch him playing for Atletico Mineiro, Gilberto’s former club. Instead, his eye was drawn to a tenacious young Sao Paulo player, winning the ball all over the pitch and spraying it to colleagues.
It was love at first sight. Wenger says: “I was impressed by the way he knew where to be on the pitch and the quality of his passing. Most of all, I liked his winning attitude. You could see he was a fighter.” With his interest in Ramon gone, Wenger decided he had another job for Steve Rowley, Arsenal’s chief scout.
Now, looking every bit the former street urchin, Denilson holds court at London Colney on his plans to win today’s Carling Cup final against Chelsea in only his sixth start for the club, all but one in this competition. Not hoping to win it mind. “I will win it”, he says, sporting a black eye that shows he is prepared to take a blow or two for the cause. “Tottenham did it”, he explains almost proudly. No player has caused more excitement at Arsenal since Cesc Fabregas came swaggering through the kindergarten door. And if Denilson, 19, will not be bullied on the pitch, neither will he be patronised off it. Invited to provide a schmaltzy cliche of a headline by agreeing that his startling progress feels like a dream, he says: “No. It feels like reality to me, though it has gone better than I could have imagined. But I did not come here with the idea of waiting around, I came here to fight for a place from the start.
“The football is much faster here and I like that but you’ve also got to be more physical and have a body to deal with the battering you get. In my first game for Arsenal reserves, I got kicked more than ever before in my life. In Brazil, many players would have got red cards. But I feel no pressure. I feel like the games are just kickabouts in the street. That’s how I learned to play back home, kicking around with my friends in the dusty streets until the sun went down.”
Denilson is the latest of Wenger’s water-carrying Brazilians, joining holding midfield player Gilberto and the muscular battering ram Julio Baptista. Wenger has no time for the samba types and neither does his young protege. Denilson says: “The football is so different here. In Brazil, the players are very vain, they strut around the pitch and when they get the ball, they do whatever they want with it. Here, you have to obey orders more and play more of a team game.” Gilberto, quite naturally, has taken the boy under his wing, helping him with his English and promising to take him to Madame Tussauds when the fixture congestion eases.
Gilberto, of course, arrived at Arsenal as a World Cup winner but still understands the difficulties of adjusting. He says: “I am impressed by Denilson, he seems to find it very easy on the pitch, although all the young boys have done a brilliant job in the Carling Cup with their quality and personality. What impresses me most is that they are not afraid to play. I remember being 18, 19 and being a bit scared to play for the first team. These boys are not and that’s good to see.”
In the absence of Thierry Henry, Gilberto is expected to be captain today, although he has only made one Carling Cup appearance, in the second leg of the semi-final against Tottenham. He says: “It was great to play alongside them but I would feel guilty to be on the pitch at the start and have to look at the bench and see some of those youngsters who have been playing all the time.”
Henry, Freddie Ljungberg, Jens Lehmann and William Gallas have all been left out of the squad to fulfil Wenger’s pledge to stay faithful to the youngsters who got the club to the final, though no one has yet found an alliterative collective name for his teenagers. How about Wenger’s Whelps? Should they deliver the first victory for Arsenal over Chelsea since the latter appointed Jose Mourinho, questions will surely be raised about which group of players really represents Arsenal’s first team. Wenger says it will give him a nice headache, while Gilberto says: “It is good when you have that in a squad because if one of us has a problem, it’s easy for the manager to make a change.
“He has trust in all the players and the relationships between the players in the squad is fantastic. There is friendship and honesty and we tell the truth to each other at all times. There is no one stabbing someone else in the back. I describe Arsenal like a family. Some players have left since last season and some new ones have come in but we have kept the spirit of the team, which is amazing.”
Gilberto claims he has learned as much from the tyros as they have from him. At 30, he and goalkeeper Manuel Almunia are the oldest members of the squad but do not try describing him as the group’s spiritual father. “No, father is too old. Maybe older brother, but not that old.”
As for Denilson, a full house at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, Mourinho’s multi-million pound Chelsea as opponents and a global TV audience will not, he says, deflect him from his job in midfield. Even such a confident and apparently fearless young man is bound to feel the butterflies before the game but once the action starts, he intends to treat even an occasion as big as this as if it were just another kickabout on the dusty streets of Sao Paulo.
Spiff!