Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso are the king of the Premier League and the pretender to the throne. This is the story of how their remarkable shared history led them to the same touchline - as very different managers

The photograph has been famous for some time. Two 10-year-old boys stand on a grassy slope at a youth football tournament in France, staring into the camera. It is their first tournament abroad with Antiguoko, a club from their home city of San Sebastian, in the Basque Country. They will go on to win the tournament.

On the left, Mikel Arteta beams into the camera. He looks smart, in a dark anorak. He is holding what looks like a notebook or a map in a plastic holder. He looks neat and together and stylish even then. He looks as if he cannot wait for all the adventures that life is going to bring him.

On the right, Xabi Alonso looks more uncertain. He wears a wistful, thoughtful expression. He is looking at the camera as if it is a curiosity. He is carrying a rolled-up poster in one hand and what looks like a pennant in the other. His anorak is undone and billows around him. They are different characters but a certain intensity is already apparent in both.

And now the boys are men. And the first thing to say about them is that they have grown up good men, a product of their families and their city and their region. 

‘I know I am hardly neutral expressing my opinion on him as a friend and former team-mate,’ Jamie Carragher says of Alonso, ‘but anyone who spends time with Xabi will appreciate that the manner in which he carries himself and presents his vision of the game oozes class.’

Arteta can divide opinion more than his old friend but his instincts are sound and he tries to be fair and just, not only with his players but with everyone he meets. 

He is liked by staff and players at Arsenal and if it sometimes feels that he lacks levity, that is because levity is not something he aspires to.