At last month’s Winter Meetings in Dallas, agent Joel Wolfe held court in front of a large group of reporters and caused a stir when discussing his client, Japanese right-hander Roki Sasaki, who is expected to sign with a major-league team after the international signing period begins on Jan. 15.

Speculation about where Sasaki would ultimately land in MLB has simmered since his Nippon Professional Baseball debut in 2021, stoked by his stellar performance in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The Dodgers are currently seen as a favorite, but it’s clear they’re not the only team in the hunt.

At the Winter Meetings, Wolfe said that Sasaki was looking for a team that has had success on the field and a history of developing pitchers. He also mentioned access to direct flights from his new city to Japan as a consideration. But perhaps most interestingly, he said that because of Sasaki’s personal experiences growing up in the spotlight in Japan, a small market team outside of the media glare might have a greater chance than some might think.

“I think that there’s an argument to be made that a smaller, mid-market team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing coming from Japan, given what he’s been through and not having an enjoyable experience with the media,” Wolfe said. “It might be — I’m not saying it will be — I don’t know how he’s going to view it, but it might be beneficial for him to be in a smaller market.”

Teams took note, with some altering their presentations to account for the perceived preferences.

Sasaki, 23, was officially posted last month by Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines. He can pick his team, but because he is not a free agent, he will be bound by international signing bonus limits.

Just before the new year, Wolfe held a teleconference and said 20 teams submitted pitches for Sasaki.

But where will he go? And could it really be a team outside of the big coastal juggernauts? Would it be possible to break down which teams might be good fits for Sasaki, using only the criteria Wolfe laid out? (While of course understanding that there are many, many factors at play beyond these.)

For this exercise, we looked at all 30 teams and graded them on four factors (history of success, small media market, pitching development and access to Japan), ranking each team from one through 30 based on a specific metric. The best earned 30 points and the worst earned one point in each category.

We don’t know who will ultimately win the Sasaki Sweepstakes, but perhaps some teams have a better chance than we previously thought.

History of success

What Wolfe said: “The best I can say is, he has paid attention to how teams have done, as far as overall success, both this year and years past. He does watch a lot of Major League Baseball.”

Methodology: This is pretty straightforward. Does the team win? For this, we’ll look at the winning percentage of MLB teams over the last four full seasons.

Limitations: Using just the regular-season win totals from the last four seasons doesn’t include postseason success. This formula also weighs each season equally, and the 2021 Orioles (52 wins) and the 2021 White Sox (93 wins) are in much different situations than their 2025 counterparts.

Conclusion: The Dodgers are good. We knew that. Only once in the last four years has the team failed to win 100 games — and in that season, they won the World Series. With no repeat World Series winners over that period, it is clear that if winning is all that matters, joining the Dodgers is the way to go.

But don’t count out the Braves. Atlanta has the second-most regular-season victories over the last four seasons and a recent World Series title of their own. The Astros, who won the World Series in 2022, have the third-most victories over that time. The Rangers won a World Series in 2023, but only eight teams have fewer regular-season victories over the last four years.

If there’s a sleeper in this group, it’s the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee’s won the fifth-most regular-season games (366) and only the New York Yankees have won more regular-season games (367) without a World Series title in that timeframe.

Small media markets

What Wolfe said: “I think that there’s an argument to be made that a smaller, mid-market team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing coming from Japan.”

Methodology: Not all media markets are created equal. Boston is the seventh-largest TV market in the country, but playing in Boston is traditionally considered a particularly intense media experience. Boston, New York and Philadelphia have reputations as among the toughest media markets, while large markets like Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta don’t have the same reputation. For this exercise, we’ve used the 2024 Baseball Writers Association of America rolls and ranked each chapter by the number of members listed in that chapter as a reflection of the media attention.

Limitations: Using the BBWAA chapters just tells total numbers, it does not include just how many writers are at the ballpark every day. Also, there are five chapters — New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore-Washington and San Francisco-Oakland — with two teams. Both teams share the same score, even if the media surrounding the Dodgers or Cubs is greater than the Angels or White Sox. The New York chapter is by far the largest because many national writers also live in New York. Of the one-team chapters, only Boston had more members in 2024 than Miami, although many of Miami’s members cover players from Spanish-speaking countries as much or more than the Marlins. Also, this metric does not include TV or radio coverage. It also doesn’t factor in the Japanese media, which travels to cover the country’s best players, regardless of where they are playing. In 2020, at least two Japanese media members were in Cincinnati for much of the season just for Shogo Akiyama, who spent that season mostly as a platoon player.

Conclusion: The Brewers, Rays, Reds and Rockies could really bear down on Wolfe’s comments about small markets and media attention in their pitch.

Developing pitching

What Wolfe said: “He’s talked to a lot of players, foreign players, that have been on his team with Chiba Lotte. He asked questions about weather, comfortability, pitching development.”

Methodology: For this exercise, we’ll use Cy Young  Award voting from the past four years. This, of course, benefits teams with established pitchers and teams like the Yankees who sign big-name free agents, but using the cumulative voting totals hopefully gives credit to teams whose pitchers consistently garner votes. For pitchers who were traded during the season in which they earned points, we’ve used the team that pitchers started the season with because the bulk of the innings and the preparation were from the first team.

Limitations: This is less quantifiable than simple W-L records. Some teams are known for developing their pitchers at the minor-league level and some, like the Astros and Rays, are known for taking talented pitchers and improving them.

Using just the Cy Young voting limits the pool to mostly starters, which is OK since Sasaki is going to be signed and used as a starter. But this method only measures the very best performances, and how much of that is on the pitcher and how much of that is on the team? It also discounts previous advancements, such as giving the Yankees credit on Gerrit Cole, who became an ace while with the Astros and was drafted by the Pirates. It also gives more weight to the voting results, with unanimous selections earning a much higher point total than close decisions.

Conclusion: The Blue Jays, surprisingly, top the list. Much of that comes from Robbie Ray’s 2021 Cy Young campaign, but the team also had third-place finishers in 2022 (Alek Manoah) and 2023 (Kevin Gausman). Manoah is the only one of those three to come up through the Blue Jays’ system (and we’ll ignore what’s happened since then), while Ray won the award in his first full season. Gausman’s third-place finish came in his first year with the team after signing as a free agent.

The Phillies finished second, followed by the Braves. The Brewers finished ninth by this metric, but that would seem low considering the pitching the Brewers have gotten over the last four years. The Astros, a team credited with turning around several pitching careers, finished sixth.

Direct flights to and from Japan

What Wolfe said: “When we supply information to our Japanese players, long before they come over here, one of the things that we provide for them is direct flights from Japan and the amount of time it takes for family to come and visit you. I think about five or 10 years ago that was something that maybe they weighed a little bit more, but now you can fly direct from Japan to most of the major cities in the U.S.”

Methodology: There are direct flights to Japan from 15 different airports in the continental United States. Toronto also has direct flights to Japan. For this exercise, we will use the distance from the team’s home ballpark to the nearest airport with a direct flight to Japan.

Limitations: There are a ton, but we’ll start with the fact that when traveling, the most relevant unit of measurement is time, not distance. However, variables including frequency of flights, schedules, traffic and overall distance come into play — a flight with a stop from the West Coast will likely take less time than a nonstop flight from the East Coast to Japan. And, yes, O’Hare airport may only be 14 miles from Wrigley Field, but there are times of day that it can be a long drive.

Conclusion: San Diego is the clear winner here. San Diego International Airport doesn’t have the volume of flights available at LAX, but it does have the bonus of not being LAX or having LAX traffic, which can add hours to travel time. The Twins are a sneaky good spot with direct flights.

Of note: Though it isn’t reflected in our calculation, Seattle offers the shortest flight time (10 hours, 10 minutes) to Tokyo.

Final conclusion

Why are the good teams good? Well, those good teams win games, develop players and have money. Those three are actually tied to the categories given — with market size in part determining both direct flights to Japan and media attention, both of which impact revenue. That’s why it’s no surprise that the top three teams in our exercise are the Padres, Braves and Astros.

It is only when we get to fourth place that we have one of those small-market teams in the Brewers. The Brewers tick all those boxes, with an out-of-the-box pick in O’Hare International. (It may be in a different state, but O’Hare is just over an hour and a $114 Uber ride from Milwaukee.)

Will the Brewers be the pick? It seems unlikely, but Matt Arnold’s team can make some interesting points in its sales pitch.

The Padres had already been a team seen as having a shot at Sasaki’s services, and not just because of the team’s recent history of handing out major contracts and making big splashes. The Padres tick all the boxes that Wolfe laid out, both in general terms and in our exercise. While the top 10 is littered with big-market bullies, the Mariners, who have as much history with Japanese players as any team, finished 10th, followed by the Twins. Both teams are ahead of the Dodgers on this list, but somehow, it seems Los Angeles still has a pretty good chance of landing another Japanese superstar.

(Photo of Roki Sasaki: Eric Espada / Getty Images)

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen closed out the best season of his career with six consecutive weeks at No. 1 in The Athletic’s QB stock report, maintaining his lead over Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson after his own six-week run up top.

As we entered the season with a maiden voyage in this quarterback project, the most daunting question was obvious while the answer remained wildly unclear: How was anyone going to leapfrog Patrick Mahomes?

Every week, these rankings focused on a confluence of primary factors — current performance, career résumé, future potential and the situations around the QBs. So with Mahomes winning three of the last four Super Bowls, it was going to take something extraordinary for his demotion.

Of course, some extraordinary things happened. Mahomes and the Chiefs kept winning despite their uncharacteristic struggles, while Allen and Jackson duked it out in the MVP race for the final three months of the season. And while Joe Burrow played at a higher level than Mahomes, the Bengals missed the playoffs, thereby invoking the situational parameter within his ranking.

On the flip side, Aaron Rodgers is a Super Bowl champion and four-time MVP. Mahomes is the only active QB with a superior résumé, but Rodgers finished in the bottom-10 of the rankings and has been in the 20’s since Week 11. His individual performances, with a few exceptions, were to blame along with the Jets’ circumstances and a cap on the 41-year-old’s potential.

Along the way, we dove deeper into certain quarterbacks, tapping into valued insight from a host of coaches and executives around the league. Their viewpoints also carried weight in the rankings. Among the topics hit this season: We examined Allen’s MVP surge, Rodgers’ downfall with the Jets, Bryce Young’s midseason revival, Jordan Love’s contract validation, Caleb Williams’ resurfacing flaws and C.J. Stroud’s regression.

We hope you enjoyed the first season of rankings as much as we enjoyed putting them together. Let’s close it out by recognizing some of the biggest trends of the year.

Biggest preseason riser

Sam Darnold, on his fourth team in five years, opened training camp as the likely backup to rookie J.J. McCarthy, so expectations ranged from nonexistent to minimal.

Sure, Darnold’s pedigree as the No. 3 pick out of USC couldn’t be ignored, nor could coach Kevin O’Connell’s QB-friendly system. But no one could’ve predicted this.

Darnold finished fifth in the league in both passing yards (4,319) and touchdowns (35) and finished sixth among qualified QBs with a 102.5 passer rating.

Darnold opened the season as the 28th-ranked quarterback, and he rose 19 spots. He’s been a mostly steadying presence for the team that was tied for the third-most wins in the NFL. Star receivers Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison never missed a beat.

Despite the meteoric rise, Darnold did dip for a bit, going No. 11 in Week 10 to No. 18 in Week 12. He still finished the season with his only three weeks in the top 10. Darnold will enter the offseason with the potential to become the crown jewel of the free agent market.

Biggest preseason faller

Aaron Rodgers was still viewed by many around the league as one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks at the start of the season, even coming off the torn Achilles, so the New York Jets QB debuted at No. 5.

He remained in the top six for the first five weeks of the season before the evidence became too great to ignore, and he plummeted to No. 15 in Week 6. Rodgers fell to No. 20 in Week 11 and never improved his standing. He finished the season ranked ahead of only two quarterbacks who were expected to open the season as their team’s starter.

Rodgers’ 63.0 completion percentage was his lowest since 2019, but he actually finished with more yards (3,897) and touchdowns (28) and fewer interceptions (11) than in his final season with the Packers.

Rodgers’ future is very much up in the air. Whether he wants to continue playing and if the Jets would want him back remain open questions. He may still be an asset for a veteran team that believes it’s a QB shy of the playoffs, but Rodgers will have to play much better than he did amid the Jets’ chaos.

Biggest midseason riser

Carolina Panthers QB Bryce Young’s turnaround was one of the most spectacularly unexpected stories of the season.

The 2023 No. 1 pick was benched after coach Dave Canales’ second game. And although Young’s performance justified the demotion, it raised significant questions about Young’s future with an organization that has made more than its recent share of impulse decisions.

It’s not like the Panthers benched Young with a definitive timeline for his return to the field, either. Young only got his job back after Andy Dalton injured his hand in a car accident.

And yet, Young played well down the stretch with 15 touchdown passes, five touchdown runs and six interceptions over his final 10 starts. They were also 4-6 during that stretch, which is no small feat for a team that had lost 22 of its previous 25 games.

Canales has had a nice history with his quarterbacks, so it was surprising to see it start so poorly. But now that Young is entering the offseason playing his best football, the Panthers will be an intriguing team entering 2025.

Biggest midseason faller

It was supposed to be C.J. Stroud’s year. It never played out that way.

The Houston Texans QB debuted at No. 7 and soared to No. 3 just a week later. That’s where he remained for most of the first half, including as late as Week 9, but Stroud steadily fell the rest of the way. His ranking worsened in eight of the final 10 weeks, all the way down to No. 15.

Stroud’s numbers were down across the board. He completed 63.2 percent of his passes for 3,727 yards, 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an 87.0 passer rating. His rookie numbers were superior in every category, which is even more noteworthy considering he played two fewer games in 2023.

The Texans need to build a better offensive line because the pressure was the main deterrent to Stroud’s success. The injuries didn’t help, either.

And yet, Stroud and the Texans are back in the playoffs. There are plenty of reasons to remain bullish on Stroud.

Best rookie

This wasn’t difficult.

Jayden Daniels opened the season at No. 22, jumped to No. 13 by Week 6 and into the top 10 in Week 9. The Washington Commanders QB closed the season with three consecutive weeks at No. 8.

Daniels completed 69 percent of his passes for 3,568 yards, 25 touchdowns, nine interceptions and a 100.1 passer rating; he added 891 rushing yards and six touchdowns.

He was so composed in tense moments, highlighted by four game-winning drives. Daniels’ Hail Mary against the Bears was an all-time moment, but the late drives against the Eagles and Falcons were more meaningful and should provide optimism the rookie is capable of repeating the feat in the playoffs.

Caleb Williams had a rocky season, but the Chicago Bears QB still put up some numbers for a team that went through a ton of adversity. Bo Nix wasn’t asked to carry the Denver Broncos, but he carried his weight to end their playoff drought. Drake Maye was often lost in the chaos in New England, but the young Patriots QB showed evidence of being a special player. Finally, Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr. created momentum for next season with his solid play in three starts.

It’s shaping up to be a great draft class.

Incomplete …

And then there was one.

J.J. McCarthy missed his rookie season with a torn meniscus, leading to teams around the league wondering what the Vikings plan to do at quarterback. Conventional thinking suggests they’ll let Darnold hit free agency and turn toward their first-round pick in 2025. It’s just practical asset management.

But what if Darnold leads the Vikings to the Super Bowl or even the NFC Championship Game? The Vikings will have $75 million in cap space, according to Over The Cap, so they can pay Darnold to keep everything intact.

There’s an even bigger factor at play, though. McCarthy would rank as the No. 1 quarterback if he were in the 2025 draft class, according to several executives and coaches who have evaluated Miami’s Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders. The Vikings would certainly have a market if they decided to move McCarthy.

Who’s next?

On a related note, there was a major shakeup in the draft order over the final two weeks, and that should have a significant impact on the quarterback class.

For so long, the QB draft discussion focused on the Giants and Raiders. After all, they were viewed as the two most quarterback-desperate teams in the league, and they built what seemed to be an indestructible residence atop the draft order.

So much for that. The Giants will pick third after a Week 17 victory against the Colts, while the Raiders’ late wins against the Jaguars and Saints dropped them to No. 6.

Even until Sunday, when the Patriots had a temporary hold of No. 1 until they beat the Bills, QB-needy teams knew the pick was likely up for auction. Anyone willing to pay could get their guy.

Then the Titans and Browns entered the chat.

The Titans, who hold the top pick, aren’t going to build around Will Levis if this season was any indication. And the Browns know they have to get younger to find Deshaun Watson’s successor, whether that’s in Week 1 of 2025 or sometime thereafter. Watson’s setback from his Achilles injury could accelerate his to-be-determined successor’s timeline.

The Titans are in a great spot if they love Ward or Sanders — or McCarthy, which could open up a new range of options. As for the Browns, they’ve made moves in the past to ensure Watson would have an unobstructed path to the starting job, so they’re slightly more of a wild card. Maybe the star attraction of Colorado’s Travis Hunter shifts their focus to a QB in a later round.

Any way you look at it, the draft just got a lot more interesting.

Dropped out: Mason Rudolph (No. 31 last week), Dorian Thompson-Robinson (No. 32 last week).

(Photo of Josh Allen: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

The evening of August 28, 2022 and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is at home in Barcelona, playing video games and waiting for news as talks continue about a potential transfer to Chelsea.

Aubameyang is relaxed — content to stay in Spain or help ease Barcelona’s financial worries by returning to England, where he flourished for Arsenal before leaving somewhat acrimoniously.

This is a footballer who started at Milan and also counts Borussia Dortmund among the sides he has represented in a 16-year career featuring more than 300 senior goals and transfer fees totalling around $100million (£81m). The possibility of another move for Aubameyang, wife Alysha and their young children, Curtys and Pierre, is nothing abnormal. Suddenly, however, the relative calm turns into chaos.

“My eldest son came running and said to me, ‘Dad, some guys are in the house’,” says Aubameyang. “I said, ‘Just hide’.

“They came in from outside, where my wife was smoking with my cousin and her boyfriend. They took him (the cousin’s boyfriend) and came into the house. My wife was screaming. They had a gun.”

Aubameyang says he “grabbed a big bottle” and went upstairs to try to confront the intruders.

“At the same time, my sister-in-law was there with our little one,” he continues. “I said to her, too, ‘Just go. Try to hide somewhere’. This is when I saw the guys. There were four or five, I think.

“One had the gun and said to me, ‘Just go down’. I said, ‘No, no, no. Tell me what you want’. We talked and he said, ‘Sit down’. I said, ‘No’. This is when he started to punch me.”

Aubameyang describes a man in gloves containing metal landing multiple blows that broke his jaw. “I wanted to fight but one guy went down and took my kids and sister-in-law,” he says. “At that point, I couldn’t do anything. If you do something wrong, something can happen to them. We went through the house and I gave them what they wanted, so we could be OK.”

Barcelona had only just organised for security staff to begin work that week, yet the delayed arrival of outdoor toilets impacted their start date. The consequences weighed heavily. Stolen jewellery, watches and other expensive items were one thing; the psychological damage was quite another.

“If I was alone, no problem,” Aubameyang insists. “I can handle it, as mentally I’ve been prepared for everything in life, thanks to my parents. But when you have a wife and kids, it’s different.

“After that, the kids told me, ‘Papa, I don’t want to go to school, I’m scared something is going to happen there’. For a year my little one said, ‘I cannot sleep alone’. It was a big struggle. You have it always in the mind.”

Aubameyang and his family soon left Barcelona as he moved to Stamford Bridge days later and the following July he joined French club Marseille, though the trauma remained.

“I was always thinking about this,” he says. “I did so many nights like this: not sleeping at all, just thinking about that s**t. You have some nightmares. I’m a guy who, if I’m not sleeping well, I’m not going to give (a football team) what you expect from me, I’m not going to be at my best… Every time the kids are alone, they are scared.

“I still have that house, but haven’t gone back since. I think I’ll start to rent it because my kids don’t want to go to Barcelona. Their school organised a trip there — they said, ‘No chance I go’.

“I made a mistake not talking to anyone. If I had someone to talk to, a therapist or psychologist, maybe it could have helped. But I didn’t want to do anything. To tell you the truth, I was lost.”

That is why Aubameyang cites “safety” as a crucial reason behind signing with Al Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia last July, a trade which could have been interpreted for the now 35-year-old as a lucrative stop en route to retirement. Aubameyang dismisses such a notion as “bulls**t” and urges people to sample the Saudi Pro League for themselves before formulating judgements.

The Athletic went to see Aubameyang in the Gulf state in late November, watching him train at Al Qadsiah’s multi-sport facility in the eastern coastal city of Khobar and then play the 90 minutes as they beat locals rivals Al Khaleej at their Prince Saud bin Jalawi Stadium 24 hours later.

The following day, we met at a hotel across the border in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, to conduct a wide-ranging interview in which the Gabon international discussed:

• Life in Saudi Arabia, competing in its Pro League, ambitions and criticisms
• His contract “mistake” at Arsenal and Mikel Arteta’s “knife in the back” accusation
• How Barcelona was the “best memory of my career”, despite his confusing exit
• “Disrespectful” treatment and failure to connect during Chelsea “chaos”
• “Crazy” Marseille stint and playing with “anger” after his time in West London
• Taking acting lessons to fulfil “dreams” of becoming a film star post-football.

Given a chance to leave Marseille after only one season, Aubameyang’s favoured destination last summer was always Saudi Arabia, and his family have experienced “no difficulty” settling in.

“People think it is a closed country with hard restrictions,” he says. “That’s the opinion over there (in the West), but when you come here, it’s totally different. The mentality is very open-minded.”

He identifies “room for improvement” in the levels of play and professionalism while admitting that small crowds at some fixtures are “part of the process” and that the Gulf state’s hot weather can harm match tempo.

Al Qadsiah were taken over in June 2023 by Saudi-owned oil giant Aramco and are scheduled to exchange an ageing 20,000-seat ground for a modern 47,000-capacity arena, which is due to open in time for the 2027 Asian Cup and be a 2034 men’s World Cup venue.

Hosting the sport’s leading event has raised many questions for Saudi Arabia to answer — most notably regarding human rights and specifically the treatment of migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ+ community.

Did Aubameyang contemplate these issues when pondering his decision? “Not at all,” he says. “I’m really into football and, while I’m a player, I will be thinking just about football — that’s it. When I retire, maybe I’ll think about different things. But when I chose to come, I didn’t think about it.”

How does he think LGBTQ+ supporters will react to that reply?

“I can understand how they see life. They can have their opinion, but I also have mine. My choice is only about football, not political situations and everything… I didn’t see anything that shocked me to say it was a mistake coming here.”

“I was sure it wasn’t going to happen. You have until midnight and then the market shuts. It was already 8pm and you have to do a medical and everything. Around 8.30pm, my father said, ‘Let’s go to the hospital’. I was like, ‘Oh my god! Crazy!’. They found a way to get me out of the jail.’”

The prison reference is delivered in jest, but Aubameyang will never forget the drama that accompanied transfer deadline day in February 2022, nor losing the Arsenal captaincy and the weeks spent training by himself before finally joining Barcelona on a free at the end of that winter window.

Amazon’s All Or Nothing series about Arsenal charts the saga and while Aubameyang challenges elements in its portrayal of him — he denies flying to Spain without permission, for example — he does not dispute travelling there before the two clubs had agreed a deal. “I wanted to push it, I just wanted to go,” he says.

He had been banished for his “latest disciplinary breach” in December 2021, according to Arsenal: Aubameyang had returned late after a sanctioned trip to collect his unwell mother from France. For manager Mikel Arteta, it was the final straw.

Aubameyang argues that he fell foul of complex and ever-changing Covid-19 pandemic protocols at the time, which meant he was prohibited from entering the club’s training ground when he did.

GO DEEPER

The inside story of how it fell apart for Aubameyang at Arsenal

“My mistake,” he concedes. “I should have come back the night before, but I arrived in the morning. I didn’t tell them that I would miss the flight because I was preoccupied with my mum’s stuff (medical examinations).

“I went directly to a team meeting. Everything was normal. After that, he (Arteta) said, ‘Come with me’. This is where he started shouting. He said I could not do this because I was the captain and it was not acceptable.

“He said I gave him a knife in his back; I don’t know why he said that. I was really p**sed off because it was not true and he knew why I flew. He knew the reason and what was happening, he knew I was struggling that year. I was expecting help from him, not killing me like this.”

Might the conflict have been solved by Aubameyang apologising?

“When I’m late, (and) it’s my fault — no problem. I always said sorry,” he says. “But in this case, I’ll never say sorry. For taking my mum from Laval (his hometown in France) to London? No. Even if I came a day late, I would never say sorry. You understand or you don’t. If not, don’t give a day off or tell people they cannot fly.”

Arteta claims to have kept a dossier of Aubameyang’s alleged indiscretions, which centred on punctuality. The player does not contest this but queries why some Arsenal team-mates were treated more leniently for similar offences. He is adamant Arteta could have dealt with it all differently.

Infamously, Aubameyang was late to assemble for the March 2021 north London derby at home against Tottenham and got excluded from the matchday squad — a move that diminished trust between him and Arteta.

Aubameyang (top) watches the north London derby from the stands in March 2021 (Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

“You leave the car at the stadium, then take the bus to the hotel,” says Aubameyang. “I didn’t miss the bus, they were waiting for me. There was a (traffic) accident near my home; maybe I should have set off earlier, but you don’t know what will happen. He was p***ed off as it’s a big game.

“When we got to the hotel, he called me to his room and said I wasn’t going to play. He was strict. The rules are the rules. I felt hurt. I had tears because I wanted to play that game, badly. I didn’t want to hurt anybody. The next day we had a meeting and I stood up in front of everyone to say sorry. He also came to my house to speak, because he didn’t want this to be chaos.

“I said, ‘It’s going to be OK’. But from then it was not the same.”

Aubameyang then contracted malaria on international duty. By the time it was diagnosed and treated, he had faced Liverpool and Europa League opponents Slavia Prague with the debilitating tropical virus in his body. At the same time, Aubameyang continued to navigate the repercussions of his mother suffering a stroke in late 2020.

He was “lost” and “depressed”, he says — a far cry from the euphoria which had greeted the attacker ending doubts over his future by signing a new contract a couple of months previously.

Arsenal were on the road to their FA Cup semi-final with Manchester City in July 2020.

“I was talking on the bus with (fellow striker) Alexandre Lacazette,” says Aubameyang. “Every fan was saying, ‘Sign da ting!’. Laca asked me, ‘What are you going to do?’ I was like, ‘To tell you the truth, I really don’t know’.”

He inspired wins over City and then Chelsea to lift the FA Cup at an empty Wembley during the pandemic. It remains Arteta’s only major trophy for Arsenal.

Aubameyang and Arteta with the FA Cup in August 2020 (Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

“If I’m being honest, at that time I wanted to go,” says Aubameyang. “For me, it was time to find a new challenge. I did my time. It was very nice, but I needed to change. It had been four years, I did great and maybe it was time to leave it like this, proper and clean, so people remember me as a good Arsenal player. I felt I needed to go because if I stayed, something would go wrong.”

What altered that notion was a “very refreshing” meeting with Arteta. They discussed the team, players, the need to recruit, staff, methods of working and more. “He convinced me,” Aubameyang adds. “He said, ‘I think you can leave a legacy’. I think it was the first time I heard this word in English.

“He said, ‘If you stay, you can be an icon, like the big names at Arsenal’. I started to change my vision. He and the fans convinced me to stay. But at first, I wanted to leave. This is where it got chaotic, because when you go against your heart, maybe this is where I made my mistake.”

At the point of putting pen to paper, Aubameyang had recently turned 31 and anticipated belonging to Arsenal until hanging up his boots. Scoring 15 goals in all competitions in 2020-2021 signalled he had plenty left in the tank. Yet his personal strife allowed the underlying sentiments to resurface.

“I felt it progressively,” he says. “Slowly, slowly, I was kind of giving up. Sometimes there are things more important than football. Maybe people don’t realise, because they think football is the most important thing. (But) that is not true.”

Time and distance have enabled healing and perspective.

Aubameyang received a “great message” from Arteta after they parted ways and would now gladly engage in a conversation — “You cannot stay with that negativity”. He says he will “always love Arsenal, always love the supporters… even if I went to Chelsea” and hopes to have answered some of their questions with this interview.

(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

He reckons Arteta’s side are “missing something” as they chase the silverware they “deserve” — namely a “goalscoring machine”. So, who are they missing?

“Me,” he says, tongue in cheek.

In the summer of 2022, Chelsea signed Aubameyang from Barcelona and he agreed a two-year contract, “100 per cent” to be reunited with his former Dortmund manager, Thomas Tuchel.

Aubameyang had cherished his four-month spell at Camp Nou — where his terms should have kept him through to 2025 — and says it provokes “only good memories, the best of my career”. But he “needed” to “feel love again” after Arsenal and prove he was still a “good player and person”.

If Tuchel had not been at Chelsea, there is “no chance” Aubameyang would have left Barcelona, he says. But, within a week of his transfer, the German lost his job. It followed a Champions League defeat at Dinamo Zagreb, a match where Aubameyang — donning a mask to protect his injured face following the robbery at his house — made a miserable debut.

Aubameyang in his protective mask (Slavko Midzor/Pixsell/MB Media/Getty Images)

He “went against doctor’s advice” and explains, “When you arrive somewhere (new), you want to show straight away you’re involved. It was the worst game of my life, but I did it because I had to play.

“I remember that day because I didn’t recognise him (Tuchel). It was not the guy I knew a few years ago. We had a close relationship. He was the only guy who really understood me in Dortmund. At Chelsea, it was like something was wrong. I felt he was not enjoying his time.

“We lost (1-0) and he was p**sed off. Usually, he would go crazy but he came to the dressing room and then left. I was like, ‘This is not the guy I know. Very strange’. The next day, he was sacked.”

Graham Potter was hired away from Brighton and the October brought three goals for Aubameyang in as many outings. But after a home humbling by Arsenal, he barely featured. As Chelsea toiled, he implored Potter to “put me in” but “respected” the Englishman’s honesty about preferring to use Kai Havertz.

Matters got worse the following February, with Aubameyang omitted from the Champions League squad and deemed surplus to requirements. “That is when I started to say, ‘OK, this is very disrespectful’,” he states. “They tried to send me on loan to America. I said: ‘No chance’.

“I felt p***ed off. From that point, I said, ‘The season is done for me already’. I just went to training to maintain fitness; I knew I was not going to play.”

Potter was dismissed in the April and Frank Lampard stepped in temporarily.

“He (Lampard) told me, ‘OK, I need you. I want to know how you feel, if you are ready to play again’,” Aubameyang recalls. “I was like, ‘Yes. I’m waiting for this’.”

“Close to the end of the season, he spoke to me again and said, ‘What are your feelings? I’m sorry, Auba. I can’t really help you’. I understood it’s not coming from him but upstairs.”

Training at Chelsea in April 2023 (Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

Aubameyang found himself in the ‘bomb squad’ as the group at Chelsea kept expanding, pushing various renowned figures to the fringes.

“They did a mess,” he says. “It didn’t even look like a football dressing room, it was more like rugby. Hakim Ziyech, Denis Zakaria, Kalidou Koulibaly, Romelu Lukaku… It was good I wasn’t alone. We were laughing every day, so it was OK.”

There is no lingering bitterness, though, and Aubameyang praises Chelsea for how they appear to have regained stability and competitiveness. He feels a “big striker” should be sought to shoulder the goals burden “like Didier Drogba did in the past” and acknowledges he was unable to fit that particular bill.

“I never had that connection,” Aubameyang says. “No connections at all. The fans wanted the Auba they saw with Arsenal. At the time, I was not ready for that and didn’t get the opportunity. I was not ready, as well, because of what happened in Barcelona. It was a chaotic year but it was good for me because I needed a break and, at the same time, they didn’t want to play me.”

He signed a three-year deal with Marseille in July 2023 and arrived in France, where he was born and grew up, with a point to prove.

“I took a picture at a Chelsea game when I was not in the squad,” he says. “I said, ‘We’ll see next season if I’m a fan or player’. I arrived in Marseille with the mentality, ‘You’ll see the real Aubameyang.’”

After just five goals in his first 17 games, Aubameyang’s substitution towards the end of a 0-0 draw against Lille in the November drew anger from the terraces. It flicked a switch. “I was like, ‘I cannot accept that’,” he reflects. “‘Now I’ll change the way I play. I’m going to be more crazy’. I played with anger.”

In the next home match, versus Ajax in the Europa League, Aubameyang registered a hat-trick, and he ended his sole season back in French football with 30 goals in 51 appearances.

“This was the year I showed everybody who I am,” he says.

Marseille’s search for a new permanent coach produced Roberto de Zerbi and despite not gaining an opportunity to perform for the Italian as Saudi loomed, Aubameyang did value the window in which their paths crossed.

He noticed “in the first two training sessions” that De Zerbi was “different”. Aubameyang has operated under Klopp, Wenger and Xavi but views De Zerbi “like Thomas Tuchel and Mikel Arteta” in terms of calibre.

“Very high,” is where Aubameyang forecasts the 45-year-old managing. “He has dedicated his whole life to football. He always wants the best for the team and has proper ideas. Sometimes people aren’t patient but this time Marseille have to be because he can really put them back to the top.”

Now Aubameyang is focused on shining in Saudi Arabia. He spurned interest from higher-profile suitors to choose newly-promoted Al Qadsiah and, under the guidance of sporting director Carlos Anton, coach Michel — who replaced Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler — and ex-Rangers chief executive James Bisgrove, they are flying.

A six-game winning streak secured third spot in the SPL heading into its winter break — below only Benzema’s Al Ittihad and Neymar’s Al Hilal, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr fourth. Aubameyang’s record so far stands at seven goals across 14 appearances in all competitions. “They want to be the best and I can help them grow,” he says.

Aubameyang also has ambitions with Gabon, who have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations at the end of this year and are in contention to reach their maiden World Cup finals appearance the following summer.

Further down the line, he prefers the thought of club ownership or, perhaps, a sporting director-type position rather than coaching. His motivations, though, transcend football: becoming an actor is one of his “dreams” and he is taking private lessons to master the art.

“Comedy, for sure!” Aubameyang laughs while referring to his choice of genre. “If you see me in a film that’s too serious… nah, you will not believe it. If it’s comedy, yes, you’re going to believe it.”

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)