Fàbregas Brings Como’s Rise Back to the Ground That Made Him

Twelve months ago, a Champions League campaign for Como 1907 would have sounded like a wind-up. Now it’s the reason Cesc Fàbregas walks back into the Emirates Stadium not as a guest of honour but as a rival manager with something to prove. His side finished fourth in Serie A last season, a result that secured the club’s first-ever appearance in Europe’s premier competition, and the small Lombardy club he has spent three years rebuilding now arrives in north London using a friendly against his old side as a genuine staging post for continental football rather than a end-of-summer formality. That context matters more than the scoreline tonight ever will.

For Arsenal, the framing is different but no less pointed. This is the last outing before Sunday’s Community Shield meeting with Manchester City, and Mikel Arteta arrives at it having lost back-to-back friendlies — 3-1 to Real Betis, then 3-2 to Borussia Dortmund in the Emirates Cup — with six goals shipped across those two matches. A pre-season record like that would ordinarily be background noise, filed away and forgotten by the time the Premier League season starts. But with a genuine trophy four days away, Arteta needed his side to show something more coherent tonight, even while missing key parts of his first-choice XI.

Arteta was warm about his counterpart in the build-up, describing Fàbregas’s work at Como as an “amazing job” and a project that has become something extraordinary in Europe. The affection is not hard to explain — Fàbregas made more than 300 appearances in Arsenal colours before his move to Barcelona, and while that exit still divides opinion among older supporters, nobody at the club disputes what he did with a ball at his feet during his years in N5. Tonight is only the second time the pair have gone head-to-head as managers, and the first time it has happened on Arsenal’s own turf.

⚠️ Treatment Room: The Confirmed Absentees

Note: Como travel to London with no officially listed injuries. Nico Paz has stayed in Italy rather than make the trip, but that is a squad-management decision rather than a confirmed fitness issue, so he is not included in the table above.

🔵 How the Two Sides Line Up

Points Worth Watching

• This is the first-ever competitive or friendly meeting between Arsenal and Como in either club’s history.
• Bruno Guimarães, signed for a reported £75 million from Newcastle United, is named among the substitutes and could make his first appearance in Arsenal colours.
• Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka are not involved tonight as the club continues to manage their return from an extended post-World Cup break, rather than through injury.
• Gabriel wears the armband, with two academy defenders — Theo Julienne and Marli Salmon — given rare senior starts either side of him.
• Trevoh Chalobah could feature for Como just days after his permanent transfer from Chelsea was confirmed.

None of this will settle much by full time. Friendlies rarely do, and with a Community Shield date against Manchester City already circled for Sunday, Arteta’s real audit of this Arsenal side begins at Wembley rather than at the Emirates tonight. But for a club that has built its recent identity on incremental progress — a top-four finish turned into genuine title contention, a squad rebuilt piece by piece around Ødegaard and Saka — even a low-key friendly against an emerging force like Fàbregas’s Como carries a little more weight than the billing suggests. It is a measuring stick dressed up as a warm-up act, and both benches know it.

Watch Arsenal vs Como full match replay and highlights, At Wednesday, August 12, 2026. as Friendly.