Parma have named former Arsenal assistant coach Carlos Cuesta as manager, the Italian Serie A club said on Thursday, with the 29-year-old taking up his first senior managerial role.

Cuesta, who signed a two-year contract, replaces Cristian Chivu who left this month to join Inter Milan.

The 29-year-old, now the youngest manager in Europe’s top five leagues, has been Mikel Arteta’s right-hand man at Arsenal for the past five years.

Having decided at a young age that his future lay in coaching rather than playing, Cuesta was given his first chance at Atlético Madrid with their underage teams and after four years there, went travelling Europe to study coaching methods.

It was during this period that Cuesta met Arteta, then part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff at Manchester City, and after a two-year spell with Juventus’ youth academy, Cuesta joined Arsenal in 2020.

Cuesta has played a key role in Arsenal’s rise to title challengers, known for his one-on-one talks with players as he specialised in individual player development, focusing on technical skills and tactical principles.

While Cuesta, fluent in six languages including Italian, clearly made an impression on Arteta when they first met, the same can be said about his time at Juventus when Federico Cherubini, now Parma CEO, was involved at the club.

Cuesta becomes the youngest Serie A manager in nearly a century. In 1939, Elio Loschi was 29 years, 9 months, 20 days old when he took charge of his first match as player-coach at Triestina.

The Spaniard will be 30 years, 26 days old when he takes to the dugout for Parma’s first match, coincidentally also against Juventus.

Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.