Former Arsenal midfielder says Wenger treated him ‘like a son’, helped during ‘very difficult personal moment’

ESPN Brasil have sat down former Arsenal midfielder Edú Gaspar, and interviewed him about his time at the London club.

The player, who now works for the Brazilian National Team as coordinator under Tite, recalled his time in London and talked about the importance Arsene Wenger had in that period of his career.

He said: “The start was good. The adaptation wasn’t easy. I went through a very difficult personal moment before arriving in England. I lost my sister a week before arriving. But I got a very big support from Arsene.”

Gaspar also talked about all the dificulties he had during his first year at the club, some of them perfectly understandable for someone originating from South America: “The period of adaptation to the language wasn’t easy either. The weather was also difficult due to arriving during the winter period in England, and summer here in Brazil, in January.”

“Arsene was a guy from whom I learned a lot and today I still take the concepts that he applied on a daily basis with us.”

“He treated me like a son. In that period, when I lost my sister, he was a guy who not only embraced me, but embraced all my family, who were there with me.”

 

Edu Gaspar joined Arsenal from Corinthians for £7.5m in 2002. He spent three seasons with the Gunners, making 117 appearances.

He left in 2005 to join Valencia, before returning to Brazil to rejoin former team Corinthians again in 2009.

The player spent two seasons there, before retiring in 2011, when he started working in a director role at Corinthians. That’s where he met Tite, who became the National Team’s manager earlier this year and took Gaspar with him.