Cesc Fabregas has his heart set on the dugout after studying the best

Unlike most, Cesc Fabregas has not come to northern Italy’s lakes to wind down. If anything, he is just getting started.

The 35-year-old caught the footballing world off guard this summer when he packed up his Premier League, LaLiga and World Cup winners medals and headed for Serie B and little-known Como. There is, however, method in the apparent madness.

Fabregas is looking to the next leg of his career, embarking on that well-trodden path from player to coach. In Italy’s second tier, he feels he has found the perfect learning environment.

He is aided by a club that is openly looking to extend its global reach, and by a CEO in Dennis Wise who is only too happy to help a fellow Chelsea icon on his journey. Both are helping the Spaniard to complete his UEFA coaching badges.

He is also aided by his notebooks. On his own inclination that a move into the dugout might one day be of interest, Fabregas began taking notes from all the managers he had the privilege of working with down the years.

In these pages are entries pertaining to some of the greatest managerial minds seen this century, with lessons taken from Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger.

As a player, it has been his former Arsenal master who has resonated with him most.

‘In my team, I always talk,’ he tells Sportsmail. ‘I always spoke up, gave my opinion, I’ve had discussions with players, with coaches, always in a constructive way. Giving your honest opinion.

‘Arsene was always very open with communication, very open to dialogue – “What do you think about this?” – asking questions. He was always testing you mentally.

Nowadays, the coaches are not like that. They are more: “It’s me, you do what I say and that’s it”.

‘You have no say. It’s a way for them to protect themselves, for them not to be having to give explanations to anyone. They make their decisions. Whoever likes it likes it, if not, you’re out.

‘This is the way it is going with the modern managers. I was brought up in another environment, with Arsene with [Vicente] Del Bosque. That’s how I was and that’s how I will be. Always with respect, but giving it how I think.’

As Fabregas can attest to, however, football, like everything else, evolves. The dressing room and training ground are no longer the only educational arenas for fledgling coaches.

He has just rattled through the Amazon Prime documentary series All or Nothing focussing on his former club, giving him the chance to study another head coach.

Mikel Arteta’s methods are laid bare in the show and Fabregas believes he shows all the hallmarks of some of his most celebrated contemporaries. Arsenal’s current Premier League form – they sit top of the Premier League at the international break – would suggest the Como midfielder’s take is an astute one.

‘Sometimes the first thing we do is kill the manager,’ he says. ‘Always the coach is the one that pays for everything.

‘In this type of series you can actually see the work that a manager does, the amount of hours he puts into it, the messages he sends and then you judge yourself.

‘I think Mikel comes across very well. Nowadays modern managers are like him. Guardiola is the same, Luis Enrique is the same, Conte, Mourinho.

‘You can be more offensive, you can be more defensive – all these successful coaches are the same. The right message is that they want to win every single game, one way or another.

‘Ones you will like more the football they play, like [Jurgen] Klopp and Guardiola. But they all have the same attitude towards the game, which is convincing their players that this is the right way to win football matches and to win trophies.’

While Fabregas is happy for the opportunity to watch his former club, there is a relief that he has never found himself  under the microscope on the other side of the screen.

Given his ambition to continue in the game he accepts the direction in which football coverage is headed, and admits there are plenty moments from his own career – from ‘Pizza-gate’ to heated exchanges with Antonio Conte at Chelsea – that he is glad escaped the attention of the cameras.

‘I understand now, with social media, Amazon, Netflix is what sells now,’ he says. ‘I enjoy watching it, I’m not sure how I would feel being a part of it!

‘I’ve had moments in my career that I wouldn’t like to see me in the dressing room.

‘At Arsenal, I was captain there, at Chelsea, meetings with Conte, I don’t think I’d want to watch that. Meeting with Marina [Granovskaia] when I told her I was leaving the club. There are a few.

‘At the end of the day, you have to have personality to speak up and say your thing, but always in a respectful way.’

For now, he is avoiding the lenses, hidden away in the hills of Lake Como amid the obscurity of Serie B.

He made his debut at the end of August against Brescia, in front of a modest crowd of 4,754 that included Thierry Henry.

Like the Frenchman, Fabregas’s move to the lakes of northern Italy has also seen him invest in Como 1907, partnering up with his old Arsenal mentor off the pitch.

It gives the pair a voice when it comes to matters on the club, the latest of which has seen former Torino boss Moreno Longo installed as head coach.

It also gives the rest of the squad yet another world-renowned star to look up to, something Fabregas insists cannot be underestimated.

‘Thierry was very special as a team-mate. I can only speak so highly of him,’ says Fabregas – who registered his first assist in Como’s 3-3 draw with SPAL last weekend. ‘I was only 16 when I joined the first team [at Arsenal]. They welcomed me with open arms and I think Thierry was great. He’s someone that I look up to.

‘It’s important for the club. Once I came here I knew they wanted to do something special. They wanted to bring some important guys to the club, to actually make it grow.

‘It’s a statement from the club that we want to do well. We want this club to grow, to come forward, as quickly as we can, to bring someone of Thierry’s stature will be very important.

‘Already the players, they speak about it, they’re excited. You know when you have someone on board like Thierry. Unconsciously, you will always feel the pressure – the good pressure. You want to give even more.’

As his gaze begins to fix on a life on the touchline, it is clear there is plenty left for Fabregas to give.