In an exclusive interview with Flashscore, he explains how Mikel handled the pressure, what Mikel Arteta has added to his game and why he believes his son is now at the peak of his career.
Miguel, I would like to start with your time at Osasuna. How did you arrive at the first team, how do you remember those first moments, and especially your debut at the Santiago Bernabeu? You also scored a goal. What memories do you have of those days?
"For me, it was very special. I was leaving home for the first time and leaving the family environment to go to a region I did not know at all. I had never been to Navarra. But the offer Osasuna made me was to continue playing for the reserve team, which was in the same division as Leganes, where I had been playing, and to train with the first team during pre-season. It was a bet on me.
"I did well in pre-season and, as it happened, I stayed with the first team. Luckily, the coach at the time, Pedro Mari Zabalza, had enough confidence in me to give a young player with less experience than the other signings the chance to start the first league game at the Bernabeu against Real Madrid.
"It was incredible. A dream. Being from Madrid, and with my family also being from Madrid and Real Madrid supporters, it was very special. Scoring a goal and drawing the game made it a great debut."
It is difficult to imagine a better stage. You also mentioned your family, who were Real Madrid supporters. What did they say to you after the game, seeing their son score against the club they loved?
"When your son plays football and is on the pitch, what you want is for your son to do well. That is the main thing. They actually had some problems with the fans around them because they celebrated the goal in a very Madrid style, and some people got angry until they explained, "Hey, he's my son." Then they understood. They were very congratulatory and very proud of me."
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You know better than anyone because your son also plays football. We will talk about him later, but first I want to talk about you and the dressing room at that time. It seems Osasuna had something very special. Everyone in Pamplona has memories of that team.
"Yes, because it was a very special club. There was a feeling of home. Although there were also people from abroad, because it was the era when clubs could have three foreign players, those players adapted and integrated perfectly into the club and into Navarrese society. The people at the club supported us from the moment we arrived and the truth is that it was very familiar.
"That makes the performance of the team better because there is a feeling of unity that makes the performance much greater. I believe we had a very beautiful period in which we had very good results. We also had some bad ones, of course, but the atmosphere inside the dressing room was spectacular.
"I remember that at that time Michael Robinson and Sammy Lee were among the foreign players. Those of us who were not from Navarra were very well integrated into the dynamics of the club."
You mentioned Michael Robinson. He was a very special person who was loved by everyone, especially in Spain. What was it like to meet him? We all know that his career as a commentator became an example for many of us, but what was he like as a player?
"He came from a great club like Liverpool, where he had won European titles, and then came to Osasuna. I think he even said in an interview that when they told him about Osasuna, he looked for Pamplona on the map and could not find it. I remember Michael as a very happy person. He was happy both on and off the pitch.
"In the dressing room he was always cheerful and always joking around. He was already in the last phase of his career and had a serious knee injury that caused him a lot of pain, but he gave a lot to the young players, especially in terms of character.
"I think he was someone who had already lived football with a lot of pressure and came to Osasuna to enjoy himself. He enjoyed it, and he enjoyed it because he was performing well despite his knee problems."
When you were with him in the dressing room, did you notice that this guy might eventually work in television after his playing career?
"The truth is that he had enough personality to face that challenge of getting in front of cameras. He was a person who was not afraid of anything. He was very friendly, and I think that is what really captivated people. Apart from his Spanish and English, I think his personality helped him a lot in his career as a commentator. He was naturally suited to television and to entertainment."
What did Jan Urban have as a person and as a footballer that perhaps we could not see from the outside?
"When he arrived, he was quite shy, but for me he was the best foreign player who passed through this club. As a person, he knew how to adapt perfectly to the club, Navarra and Pamplona. His children also grew up here when he stopped playing, and he adapted very well. He was very calm but competed extremely well.
"Despite not being aggressive in physical contacts, he was tough. When you hit him, it was like hitting a wall. He did not need to be aggressive because his body was already strong enough. He was calm, friendly and very close to his friends. He fitted perfectly with the way the club was. He made a big effort to integrate and learn the language. He was a great guy."
Are you surprised by the career he has had as a coach? Urban is now the Poland national team coach.
"I am not surprised because he had so much experience as a player and his personality is undeniable. That is something you have whether you have played football or not, and it comes through. Then there is the way he understands football, the way he speaks to the press and, above all, the way he addresses players.
"He had that character every coach needs, but he was also very calm and analysed things well. He was close to the players. The truth is that I am not surprised by how he has developed as a coach, because as a person he already looked like someone who could do it. As a coach, I think he has continued along the same line."
He was extremely important for Osasuna at the time.
"He was our main reference in attack at that time. He had a pubic injury at the beginning of the last season I spent at Osasuna. That hurt us a lot. He was the player who scored the goals. We practically spent half the season without him and the team ended up being relegated.
"I am not saying that was the reason we went down, but his absence was very important. Medical care was also at a completely different level compared with today."
I would also like to ask you about the current situation at Osasuna. How do you see Osasuna under Luis Miguel Ramis? What kind of feeling is the team giving you at the beginning of the season?
"I have good feelings. There have been games in which I have liked the team a lot, but the team is still being formed. Above all, the feeling I get is one of inconsistency, which is normal when you still have players who have to adapt. There are new players who have practically only been at the club for a week. So I think we are in that phase of adaptation.
"We got seven points from the first three games, and although we have had a couple of defeats, we have still been in a position where people have not become as nervous as they might have if the team had not taken those points. The team is in a phase of improvement and training. The coach is working on his ideas and the players are getting to know each other, which is very important.
"There are talented players and there is also the foundation they had from last year. I think that can help us have a nice season in the division. And if we can get into Europe, even better. Being realistic, this year will be more difficult because some of the promoted teams are playing very well. There are teams that are proving they can compete at this level, so it will be harder to identify three teams that are clearly going to be at the bottom. It seems like it is going to be a very even league, especially when you look at the table."
Sporting director of Osasuna, Braulio Vazquez, left the club after many years. Do you think his departure from Osasuna was such an important moment for the club?
"The position of sporting director is very ungrateful and very difficult. It carries a huge amount of responsibility because you are criticised for practically everything. Every signing you make has to be a success if you want to avoid criticism. I think it cannot be denied that Braulio did a great job at Osasuna, at least from my point of view.
"Of course, he had detractors. There were people who did not agree with some of his decisions or did not like some of the signings. But what is evident is that while Braulio was at the club, the team remained in the division. He was the person who brought Jagoba Arrasate to Osasuna. Arrasate gave the club stability, took them back to the first division, kept them there and helped establish them there for several years.
"Braulio also made some great signings. Obviously, you cannot get every decision right, because that is impossible, but I think he did a very good job."
And how do you think the fans in Navarra feel about Braulio now?
"I think there is a diversity of opinions. There are people who are happy with his work and believe Braulio did a good job, while others did not agree with what he did."
Celta and the golden generation
After so many years at one club, just like you experienced at Osasuna, you also had another important period at Celta Vigo. How did you experience that stage of your career?
"I was affected by the economic situation at Osasuna. Once the club decided that certain players could be sold, Celta came in and decided they wanted me. They paid the corresponding transfer fee and I joined a team that was also being built. They had just been promoted from the second division to the first division.
"The first two years were especially difficult because it is hard for a newly promoted team to establish itself in the top division. Knowing the level of the league is difficult, but we also had some experienced players who had already played in the first division. That helped us make the transition."
You were lucky enough to play with Mazinho and Mostovoi. They were two players with very different personalities and styles. How would you describe them?
"They were totally different in many ways. One was Russian and the other Brazilian. They were almost opposites, but both were incredible players. Mazinho was a world champion. He had already played important football at Valencia. He was a humble person with a great capacity for work. As a teammate on the pitch, he was crazy in the best possible way.
"And Mostovoi had a character and talent that gave you the feeling that everything was going to be fine. You could give him a difficult ball and he would turn it into a good one. He would bring it down and control it. They played in different ways, but both were players of enormous class and quality.
"That year I was lucky enough to be part of a team with players of great quality. We have talked about Mazinho and Mostovoi, but there were also Eusebio, Dutruel, Edu, Fernando Caceres, Revivo, Juan Sanchez and many others. Even with all that quality, our main objective was to stay in the division. In the end, we achieved it."
Stuttgart and the famous celebration
I would like to go back to 1991. We have to talk about it, and I am sure you do not mind remembering it. Tell us about that game in Stuttgart and your celebration.
"We were going to play the first leg here in Pamplona and it finished 0-0. The feeling in Stuttgart was that we were perhaps underestimating the team we were facing. They thought that a 0-0 result was good for them because they would play the second leg at home and would have a good chance of winning the tie.
"They were the leaders of the Bundesliga and had a golden generation with a lot of quality. But the feeling I had here in Pamplona was that 0-0 was a good result for them and that they would then put us under a lot of pressure in the second leg. We played in a very brave way, both inside and outside the stadium. We were tough players.
"We went to Stuttgart believing in ourselves. When we came onto the pitch, we understood the situation and played at full intensity. We scored the first goal through Jan Urban and continued with the same mentality. Jan gave me the assist for the second goal. Stuttgart started to get more nervous because they could see things were going wrong. And then, talking about the celebration, I went to the corner."
You celebrated there because of your mother, right?
"Yes. I wanted to dedicate the goal to my mother, but I did not know exactly how to do it. In the end, I went to the corner and made the gesture. It was an incredible moment. You score a goal, you run to the corner and you dedicate it to someone you love. It was very special.
"And that is how the story stayed until my son, Mikel, did the same thing in the same stadium 33 years later. Mikel scored against Germany at the European Championship and it was a hugely important goal for Spain."
Did you like his celebration?
"Yes. He had already used that celebration at Real Sociedad and also at Osasuna. Of course, the meaning was the same. He turned around the corner flag, but obviously the fact that he did it in the same stadium where I had scored gives the celebration an extra touch. We had not talked about whether he would celebrate that way if he scored.
"He has the ability to become completely involved in the game. Once he is involved in the game, he focuses on what he has to do. Then, afterwards, he starts thinking about his father, his wife, his friends and everything else. He has that ability to stay focused during the game and then make space for the rest."
But when you watched him, did you feel that he was doing the same thing you had done?
"Yes, absolutely. I already knew about the celebration. In fact, we talked about it because he had made his debut for the national team in Stuttgart. He played a few minutes, enough to do a good job. I told him, "Look, you have made your debut in the same place where I scored. But you still haven't scored a goal like me."
"I told him he should score there one day. And eventually he did it. I was very happy for him because it was an even more important occasion."
Mikel Merino's career
We cannot talk to you without talking about Mikel, because you are part of a generation of footballers and now your son is following in your footsteps. How do you remember Mikel when he was very young and started playing football? Did you look at him and think, "This kid is going to become a footballer"?
"Yes. We did not give him a football until we saw that he was constantly chasing the ball away from the other kids. I said, "We have to give this boy a ball." His mother had played basketball, so we wanted him to have the opportunity to choose the sport he wanted. We did not want to push him towards basketball or football.
"He started playing football. I do not know how much the fact that I was playing and that he came to my games influenced him, but when he was five or six years old, something changed. He started telling us that he wanted to be a footballer. He wanted to be a footballer and nothing else.
"We supported him, but we also told him, "Mikel, you have to understand that it is very difficult. One in 100,000 or even one in a million children becomes a professional footballer. You can suffer injuries or have bad luck. Think about doing something else as well." And he kept saying, "No. I want to be a footballer.""
So from a very young age, football was what he wanted?
"Yes. He was obsessed with becoming a footballer. He did not play basketball seriously, although he is very good in basketball. He was coordinated and had good qualities. I think that if he had not dedicated himself to football, he could have been a basketball player."
Was there a specific moment when you thought, "Okay, he can really become a professional footballer"?
"It was precisely when Jan Urban gave him his debut for Osasuna. Jan put him into the starting lineup for the first leg of the second division season. Until that moment, I had seen that Mikel had many characteristics of a good player, but then you have to adapt to the pressure of the division, to playing with professionals who already have experience and to understanding how you have to behave in those situations.
"You also have to be mentally strong. There are many talented players who do not make it because a footballer not only has to know how to play football. He has to be willing to sacrifice, to be an athlete, to rest properly and to eat well. Mikel had one big advantage: he wanted to become a footballer at all costs.
"When his friends were 16 or 17 and wanted to go out, have fun and stay out late, he stayed at home, ate properly, rested and was ready for training or a game the next day. That helps a lot. It helps you get there and become a professional footballer."
It means sacrificing a lot of your youth.
"Exactly. You have to sacrifice a lot at an age when most young people want to have fun. For Mikel, it was easier because he genuinely wanted to become a footballer. It did not feel like a sacrifice to him.
"I remember the game against Barcelona B, which was the first match in which Urban put him in the starting lineup. I was a little nervous because I did not know how he would deal with the division. But after 15 or 20 minutes, when I saw how he was playing and how he responded to the pressure of playing at a stadium like El Sadar, I calmed down.
"I thought, "This guy could become a professional." You never know how far he will go because you also need a lot of luck in a footballer's career, but I knew he had the potential to become a professional."
As a footballer, are you very different or do you have a lot in common?
"We have many things in common. We have a taste for detail in football. He is a very intelligent player. He likes to understand the game. He plays in a position where he is connected to the forwards and the defenders. He defends and attacks. You have to think not only for yourself but also for the rest of the team. You have to manage space."
Hypothetically, you are both 30 years old and at your best. Who would be better, Miguel senior or Mikel junior?
"Mikel. Mikel is a better player than me. We have similar characteristics, but I think he is better and has more capacity. Physically, as I mentioned earlier, players today are athletes. They have recovery specialists, nutritionists and many professionals around them. The product has developed a lot and players have much more support than we had.
"Of course, we also had people helping us, but nothing like what players have today to look after them, help them recover and prepare properly. On a football level, I think he is better than me. We have similar characteristics. We both had a good pass, we were good in the air and we understood the game tactically.
"In fact, he has played as a centre-back, as a forward, as an eight, as a six and as a 10. I played on the side, as a centre-back, on the right and as a forward. As players, we had a similar way of seeing football. The difference is that he has improved technically. I think he has a little more ability than me. It is important that a son turns out better than his father. That means you have done something right."
Do you talk a lot about football? Do you usually give him advice, or does he ask you for it?
"Mikel is 30 years old and has a lot of experience in football at every level. He has worked with many coaches, from Thomas Tuchel to Rafa Benitez and Imanol Alguacil. Imanol was probably the coach who helped him most in terms of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of his development as a player.
"But Mikel already has a career and a level of experience where he does not need to ask me for advice. We talk. He tells me about problems he has with a teammate, a coach or certain situations, and I give him my opinion. He listens to me, but that is all. I think we are now at a similar level in terms of experience. He already has as much experience as I do in football.
"Not as a coach, obviously, but he understands what a coach is asking for. There are many things we can talk about, but it is not about him asking me for advice. We talk, exchange opinions and that is it."
Arsenal and Arteta
How have you seen Mikel develop as a player at Arsenal?
"I have seen a big development, both physically and tactically. Arteta is a very detailed coach. He goes into everything. He works individually with defenders, full-backs, centre-backs and midfielders. He has everything very well organised. Mikel has absorbed all of that.
"Physically, he has also developed. He has gained a little more strength and the English league requires a lot of physical contact. You have to be at the highest level physically to compete there. I have seen him improve in that area. Tactically, he was already very good under Imanol Alguacil, but physically he has had no choice. If you want to compete in the English league, you have to adapt."
Mikel Arteta and Mikel Merino have a lot in common. They are both from the same region in Spain, both have connections with Real Sociedad and they have a similar understanding of football. Do you think that helped your son at Arsenal?
"We have to start with the fact that Mikel Arteta knew him from Real Sociedad and wanted him. That is already a point in favour of them having a connection. Arteta's idea of how to play was similar in many ways to what Mikel had experienced under Imanol Alguacil.
"So Mikel was already coming in with an important understanding of football that helped him connect with Arteta. In fact, Arteta probably wanted Mikel because he already knew that he was going to adapt to his way of playing. It was not simply because he was Basque or Navarrese.
"It was because of Mikel's characteristics and because their ideas about football connected. Mikel knew he was joining a club where he would play football in a way that he liked."
Injury and the World Cup
Last season was difficult for Mikel because of his injury. How do you assess the way he handled such a long and demanding period on the sidelines and then managed to return to his level?
"It was very hard. Especially psychologically. He has not had some serious injuries in his career. Sometimes he has had a shoulder problem, sometimes other discomfort, but nothing like what he went through last year. It was psychologically difficult, but he was very consistent.
"Once he had surgery, they told him what the rehabilitation process would look like and his goal was to train properly and shorten the recovery period as much as possible so that he could make the World Cup. He did it with enormous effort.
There are days when you are training and you realise that your body does not react in the way you want because you have not been able to train properly. You have been unable to work aerobically, for example. There are moments when your body does not respond, so you have to use your mentality to overcome that and do everything possible so it does not have a negative effect on your training and recovery.
"But he was consistent, hardworking and determined. In the end, he achieved his goal. He achieved everything he wanted. The most important thing for me was that he became very important not only for Arsenal, where Arsenal won the title and competed in the Champions League, but also for Spain, where he won the World Cup."
How did you experience the World Cup as a father? What did you feel when Mikel scored those decisive goals against Portugal and Belgium?
"We always go with him on the big tournament from the first day. It went well, although we have experienced almost everything with him. I have lived through difficult moments with him, including the first game against Cape Verde. There was criticism of the decision to take players who were not in their best condition, such as Mikel, Inaki Williams or Lamine Yamal.
Luis de la Fuente trusted those players and there was criticism, especially after drawing against Cape Verde. We were there supporting him because, in those moments, you have to remember that he is also away from his family. He can go a month without seeing his son or his wife.
"So the support of the family is important. Being close to him and talking to him helps him mentally to overcome certain moments. Of course, he is in contact with the cameras, his phone and everything else, but having his family close and being able to talk to us always helps. We lived it very well.
"After the first goal against Portugal, it was incredible. But when he scored against Belgium, it was crazy. At that point I could not believe it anymore because he had come on after only a few minutes against Portugal and then against Belgium. It was unique. We enjoyed it a lot."
You mentioned that he came on after only a few minutes and then scored. But every player wants to play more. How difficult is it to accept a role where you might play 10, 15 or 30 minutes?
"Luis de la Fuente knows perfectly well Mikel and other players. Most of those players are starters for their clubs because they are world class. But when they arrive with the national team, they have to accept another role and become a different type of player.
"A player who goes to the national team and is not involved, or who does not know how to accept whether he is going to play 10, 20 or 30 minutes, cannot succeed in this national team. It is a group of great players. They are all starters at their clubs, and then the player who adapts to this situation has more chances of success. That is what happened with Mikel.
"He came on against Portugal after eight or 10 minutes, I do not remember exactly, but he did it with the mindset that he is starter. Then the same against Belgium. He came on for five minutes and had the mindset of a starter. He wanted to be important in the game, make an impact and give the team what it needed.
"In the end, that is the important thing. Mikel knows what he is there for. He knows he has a certain role. There are games in which he starts and others in which he comes off the bench."
Especially as he was after a long injury.
"Yes. What has been even more surprising is that he came back from an injury and did not have the same rhythm as some of his teammates. But whenever he was given an opportunity, he gave everything. Against Uruguay, he recovered the ball and gave it to Llorente, who put in the cross.
"In the final against Argentina, he knocked down three defenders with his movement and created the space for Ferran to score. Everyone has a role. Ferran scored the final goal, Nico Williams provided the assist. In the end, there is a statistic that says substitutes can be extremely important and can score goals or decide games. That is true. They are very important.
"People sometimes think they are not, but they are. When you have a squad with so much talent, it is difficult to leave five world class players out of the starting lineup. Then, when you look at the bench and see the talent coming on, it is very difficult for an opponent to deal with."
What do you expect from Mikel's season at Arsenal?
"I think he is at the best moment of his career. He has just come through a difficult injury, but I think he is in an optimal period. He is 30 years old, he has experience, he understands football, he wants to compete and he is physically ready. I think this is the best moment of his career.
"The challenge is that he is at Arsenal, and Arsenal have many players who can play in the starting 11. The competition is enormous. If the national team has great players on the bench, Arteta also has many other players who are perfectly capable of playing. So Mikel will have to wait for his opportunity and his moment.
"There is Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard and Lewis-Skelly in midfield, and Havertz can also play further forward. But the season is very long. Last year, Mikel managed to become almost a regular starter for Arsenal before his injury. He was playing at a very high level, scoring goals and providing assists.
"Now he just has to keep working. I hope he does well and, most importantly, stays free of injuries. Then, with the national team, they will also be fighting for everything because Arsenal and Spain are both at the highest level."
Finally, a few words about one of your other former team. Leganes have made a very important signing for Spanish football by bringing in Alvaro Morata. What can Morata give Leganes in their attempt to return to the first division?
"I think Alvaro is still capable of giving a lot to football. In this case, Leganes were lucky that he wanted to return to Madrid for family reasons and because of his personal situation. He is in good shape. We saw him at the World Cup and he was fine and ready to play the next day. His quality as a player is not up for debate.
"To have a player of his quality in the second division is a huge advantage. I think he is a player with top mentality and a great work ethic. I think he is going to have a good season. I hope he does well and I wish him all the best because he is a good person, a great person."
Quick questions
Your favourite coach of your career?
"Pedro Mari Zabalza."
The most talented player you shared a dressing room with?
"Mazinho."
The toughest opponent you faced?
"Davor Suker."
The stadium that impressed you the most?
"The Bernabeu."
Who had the better shot, you or Mikel?
"Mikel."
Who is more competitive, you or Mikel?
"Mikel."
Who had more character?
"Me."
The best player of all time that you still love to watch?
"Messi. I do not care that he is playing in MLS. For me, it is always Messi."
The best teammate you ever had?
"Edu Garcia Leon."
The best Spanish player of all time?