As Hector Bellerin boards the bus bound for Wembley today, it will be impossible for him not to reflect on the journey he made a year before. When Arsenal played Hull in last season's FA Cup final the Spaniard got together with the club's other young players, sporting their boyband civvies, pretty relaxed, and made his way there to sit in the crowd and watch.
At the time Bellerin had made just one appearance for Arsenal –roughly 25 minutes as a substitute in extra time of a League Cup tie at West Brom. Watching the first team parading around the silver, he felt a surge of desire to have that feeling himself some day. “It was an inspiration,” he says.
In one season he has been transformed from talented, eager-to-learn youngster who was probably looking at another loan into Arsenal’s first-choice right-back for this season’s Wembley showpiece. He never saw it coming so quickly. “If they had told me at the beginning of the season it would turn out like this I wouldn’t have believed it,” he says in the expert Catalan/cockney twang he has developed since moving to London four years ago.
Last summer, Arsenal spent more than £20 million on players earmarked to slot in at right-back after the departure of Bacary Sagna. But the way Bellerin has so vibrantly seized his moment - comfortable on the ball, speedy enough to zoom into recovery tackles and keen to maraud forwards as a couple of goals to his name testifies - means Mathieu Debuchy and Calum Chambers have their work cut out to elbow him out the team.
Bellerin carries the air of a character who loves to throw himself into any situation with a ready supply of enthusiasm and confidence. It was this aspect of his character that drew him towards Arsenal in the first place. Barcelona-born and educated at La Masia, he turned down his boyhood club’s contract offers at the age of 16, tempted by the same kind of overtures and opportunities as those that brought about Cesc Fabregas’s development.
During the same summer that Bellerin and his friend Jon Toral arrived at Arsenal from the Camp Nou, Fabregas made the return journey. Their paths crossed briefly. "He introduced me to the club, he welcomed me and Jon," recalls Bellerin. "He just told me that everything we need at the club would be here for us.
“If I stayed there, I don’t know what I would have been. Some of my team-mates play second division, and they will probably get relegated. So being here, and playing Premier League and Champions League, I’m really happy I made that step. The success of Cesc Fabregas, that he grew up here more than in Barcelona, was something that attracted me a lot.
“I’m the kind of person who likes new challenges and for me it was a new challenge. Some people prefer to stay home in their comfort zone. I felt the right thing to do was to come here. It was difficult at the beginning but I am really glad I made that decision. Here the work is paying off; the risk of coming to something new is paying off.”
A family man, his parents and sister have moved to London to be with him. His right arm is embellished with a detailed tattoo designed by his sister, with references to all his family members. Although Fabregas famously hankered for a return to Barcelona after several years at Arsenal, Bellerin doesn’t for the moment have those instincts.
“If I wanted to be at Barcelona I would have stayed there,” he says. “My challenge was to come to England and I came here with everything.”
In his youth Bellerin admired the Barcelona players of the age. Who wouldn’t? “I was growing up as a winger, so obviously when Ronaldinho was over there and Messi started playing they were probably my role models, and Rivaldo, players who played up front. You can take loads of things from Xavi and Iniesta. And Puyol - his leadership was something I looked up to when I was a kid.”
He arrived at Arsenal willing to watch and learn all over again. He was not afraid to move position, aware that Arsene Wenger had full-back in mind for him. Adapting quickly comes with the territory in his career so far.
Last term he enjoyed a developmental spell on loan with Watford, who train just over the other side of the hedges that flank Arsenal's London Colney pitches. "It was a bit weird to see my team-mates driving by," he smiles. "It was a great experience for me, having Gianfranco Zola as a coach. He is a legend and taught me a lot. It helped me as a player and as a person as well."
Bellerin's performances in pre-season - when he broke the club's speed record with a 4.41-second sprint over 40 metres, breaking a mark set by Theo Walcott - struck his manager, and Wenger opted against another loan move for the player. Bellerin felt the same sense of amazement he now feels about Wembley when he made his full debut last September at Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. The season before he was in the crowd for the same fixture. It was a meaningful but also very challenging night.
“That is probably one of the hardest stages in Europe and in the world,” he says. “So to have played those games so early for me, even though the performances probably weren’t as good, was a really good lesson for me as a young player.
“It just made me want to prove to people those were just accidents. You need to learn and be in those situations. And then after, when games go more in your favour, you can show people what you can do.
“That was something crazy, to see in one year I was going from the stands to the pitch. Hopefully this year Wembley can be the same. It will be such an achievement for me.”
Had events turned in a different way, had Debuchy not suffered freak injuries, Bellerin might have been off to the FA Cup final as a spectator again. He couldn’t feel more ready for centre stage.
Provisional squads
ASTON VILLA: Guzan, Given, Lowton, Hutton, Senderos, Bacuna, Vlaar, Okore, Baker, Richardson, Cissokho, Delph, Cleverley, Westwood, Grealish, Cole, Sanchez, Gil, Sinclair, N'Zogbia, Benteke, Weimann, Agbonlahor.
ARSENAL: Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Wilshere, Walcott, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Sanchez, Giroud, Szczesny, Gabriel, Monreal, Debuchy, Coquelin, Cazorla, Rosicky, Flamini, Arteta. Guardian Service
