Shortly after he was appointed as Arsenal's new sporting director, Andrea Berta was invited to dinner by Josh Kroenke.
Arsenal's co-chair had watched the LA Rams, the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets deliver success for Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE). He now wanted Berta in no doubt over his brief at Arsenal.
"I went to Andrea and I laid out our championship rings," Kroenke says.
"I said: ‘This is what we’re here for. As we start to shape our thinking, know this is what we’re going for.'"
A little over 12 months later, Kroenke and Berta were side-by-side on the Selhurst Park pitch, bouncing up and down to Freed From Desire. After a 22-year wait, Arsenal had the Premier League trophy back in their hands.
Before Martin Odegaard lifted that trophy in front of the away end, Kroenke and his father Stan carried it across the pitch. Kroenke had requested the opportunity to do so.
"I just said it would mean the world to me if I could carry it out with my father," he says.
"And if it wasn't both of us, I wanted it to be him carrying it out because of everything that we've been through over here. To make that walk across the pitch with my father was something I'll never forget."
It was only five years ago that several thousand Arsenal supporters demanded the family sell in the wake of their support for the European Super League. An effigy of Stan was left hanging from a lamppost.
The Kroenkes could now be on the verge of overseeing the greatest season in Arsenal's history. The whole family will be in attendance in Budapest when Arsenal face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final on Saturday.
His father was the first person Kroenke called when Arsenal were officially crowned domestic champions last week. Stan was receiving congratulations of his own, having been in a meeting in America with other Premier League owners.
Kroenke then rang Mikel Arteta, before being put on a video call to witness some of the celebrations. Watching on from afar, experiencing that rollercoaster, has been a theme of the season.
"Max [Dowman] and the Everton game," Kroenke remembers with a smile.
"That was a fun one because I was watching that and we had just adopted a puppy. So when Max went on his run, I scared the hell out of the puppy by jumping up.
"That dog peed on the floor right there next to me with what I was saying and yelling at the television!"
At college, his nickname was 'Competition Kroenke' due to how he approached volleyball matches. That competitive streak is said to run through the entire family.
It is no surprise, then, that there was a strong reaction to the VAR drama at the London Stadium in the pivotal win over West Ham.
“I was on my hands and knees in my living room," Kroenke admits.
Kroenke has a strong relationship with Arteta after six-and-a-half years working together. They message regularly, though Kroenke is more likely to do so after disappointing results than a win.
‘Hang in there, we got this, you aren't alone’ ... ‘stay the ground, stay focused, tune out the noise’
Josh Kroenke's texts to Mikel Arteta
He pinpoints the draw away at Wolves and the defeat at home to Manchester United as moments he sensed the need to reach out.
"That's when just a one sentence text - 'hang in there, we got this, you aren't alone',” Kroenke says. “Or a couple sentences, a couple thoughts - 'stay the ground, stay focused, tune out the noise.'
Kroenke and his father have had to contend with plenty of noise themselves. It was the 2019 Europa League final in Baku that served as a turning point in the minds of the ownership.
KSE first secured shares in Arsenal in 2007 but it was not until 11 years later that the club became privately owned. At the start of the 2018-19 season, KSE bought out Alisher Usmanov to take full control of the club.
In the space of barely six months, that takeover was completed and both Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis left the club. Kroenke admits now that was "way too much change in way too short of a period of time".
After returning from Baku, where Arsenal lost 4-1 to Chelsea, Kroenke spoke to his father. "I told my dad that I think we need to really embrace where we are," he says. "Now that we have 100 per cent of the club we might need to take a step back to go forward.”
🥁 Introducing our new head coach...
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) December 20, 2019
Mikel Arteta ✍️ pic.twitter.com/PTmElGDMR3
Six months later, Unai Emery was gone and Arteta was appointed head coach in his first managerial job. The conversations with Arteta were centred on reshaping the culture at Arsenal and building new foundations.
Those discussions told Kroenke that Arteta was a "madman when it came to football" and convinced him the Spaniard would rebuild the club. There were rocky moments, including consecutive seasons finishing eighth. Kroenke believes Covid helped Arteta in that regard.
"There was something about Mikel having a little bit of space during Covid when there weren’t fans around," he says.
"To not have that extra pressure of fans being on top of you at different points in time when we were going through different growth phases."
Behind the scenes, the building blocks were being put in place at every level of the club.
"Mikel has different metaphors on how he tries to say it, whether you’re in the boat, you’re out of the boat," Kroenke says.
"Sometimes we had people that not only were they not in the boat but they’re underneath the water with a rope trying to pull us back. We had to figure out who those people were and we had to snip that rope along the way."
Arsenal's hierarchy were convinced that patience would win the day. However, it was at a lunch with Sir Chips Keswick, Arsenal's former chairman, that Kroenke was jokingly reminded the future could not always supersede the present.
Hey, someone told me a few years ago that this kid was going to be great!
Josh Kroenke on William Saliba
"I said ‘Chips, in the States we’ve had to take a step back to go forward at times, so I think at some point we may have to do that’," Kroenke said.
"And he kind of smiled and he agreed and he just looked at me and he goes: 'Bloody hell, don’t get relegated'. I knew what we shouldn’t do. Chips made that very clear."
For all the progress that has been made on and off the pitch, Arteta and Kroenke have not necessarily always been on quite the same page.
After that 2019 defeat in Baku, Kroenke had a chat with Per Mertesacker. He wanted to know who the best young centre-back in Europe was, having seen the impact Virgil van Dijk had had at Liverpool.
William Saliba was the name he was given and the Frenchman was signed later that summer.
Saliba went straight back to Saint-Etienne on loan and by the time he returned to Arsenal, Arteta was in charge. The Spaniard sent him on loan again for the next two seasons - Arteta was not initially convinced Saliba was the player he wanted as Gabriel's centre-back partner.
Having been so excited to initially bring the defender to the club, Kroenke admits the situation did confuse him.
"Mikel and I have now laughed about this because I didn’t tell him the story until much later," Kroenke says.
"We were transitioning to Mikel by the time William rejoined us. There were some thoughts on the front end about William rejoining our squad that were very well covered. I’ll let you guys fill in all those blanks.
"I was sitting over in America laughing, going, ‘Please let this kid work out!’ But I was never going to say, ‘Hey, someone told me a few years ago that this kid was going to be great!’
"What am I going to do? No. They go do it themselves. They make the decisions."
More serious, though, was what happened in April 2021. Criticism from fans was nothing new for the Kroenkes. In 2019, several Arsenal supporter groups came together to issue a letter to the ownership headed: 'We care, do you?'
Kroenke personally wrote the response to that but it was 2021 and the European Super League that escalated anger towards him and his father. Furious protests took place outside the Emirates and included that effigy of Stan.
Kroenke puts the decision to try and get involved in that breakaway league largely down to Covid and the desire to find financial solutions in the absence of matchday revenue. However, he accepts the period was a huge misjudgement.
That was part of the journey and, while we’re not proud to talk about, we’re not trying to hide from it
“When they were hanging us from lampposts? No, that was part of the journey and it's one that while we’re not proud to talk about, we’re not trying to hide from it," Kroenke says.
"We are all humans, we all make mistakes and it is one on a grand scale that really ignited a lot of emotion in people but hey, we’re still people. We made a mistake.
"I would meet with many supporters from many different supporters groups and I say this endearingly, fortunately it was in Covid and I was doing this all on screen where they couldn’t throw tomatoes at me."
Those scenes of protest now feel a long time ago. Complaints over a lack of spending have fallen away as Arsenal have invested to compete at the very top level.
That involved the statement signing of Declan Rice in 2023 for £105million, a deal Kroenke needed some convincing to sign off.
He sat in a conference room as the likes of Arteta and Edu, then the sporting director, made their pitch.
"My eyebrows raised because I didn’t know if we were in that phase just yet to go after a player like that," Kroenke admits.
“So I asked Mikel a couple of pointed questions about how we might use him, which I never really ever do. Because this should be what I refer to as ‘plug and play’. He should fit right into the starting XI and hit the ground running.
"But if we are also going to be paying this much, what’s the person we are getting? Because this better be a leader as well.
"I think just like Mikel when you sit down and talk to Declan you understand the person he is, how focused of an individual he is and so you get more comfortable with the price tag. It was a big moment for us."
It was decided last summer that squad depth was the priority, rather than one marquee signing like Rice. The club's hierarchy felt that injuries had too often derailed seasons.
More than £250m was spent on seven permanent arrivals. The reward for that investment was a quadruple push that extended deep into March. By the end of the season, Arsenal will have played in 63 out of a maximum of 65 matches.
The 63rd and final of those comes in Budapest on Saturday night. Arsenal have never won the Champions League and only once before have they even made it this far.
Breaking that duck would elevate the club to the top table among Europe's elite. With Pep Guardiola leaving Manchester City and other rivals in a transition period, there is an opportunity for Arsenal to perhaps become England's dominant force.
"Champions of England sounds pretty good and champions of Europe could sound even better, especially with the double tied to it," Kroenke says.
"But we think we have a chance here. We have very strong foundations in place to continue to build and try to sustain.
"Getting the foundations in place is usually the hardest part of the journey and now we have all this, it is about trying to stay at the top knowing everyone is trying to climb the mountain after you.
"We're going to look to strengthen because we know that teams around us are going to get better. If you're not trying to continually evolve and improve, you're standing still."
I knew we were a sleeping giant that we needed to awaken ... the ‘Banter Era’ - I’m aware of all this
Josh Kroenke
The past ten days have been a reminder of just what the Kroenkes have under their control. It is estimated that 100,000 supporters gathered at the Emirates last Tuesday on the night Arsenal were confirmed as champions.
On Sunday, a minimum of 500,000 are expected to be in attendance for the open-top bus parade through north London.
The response to Arsenal's return to trophy-winning form has been remarkable. More than two decades of pent-up heartache has been released.
“I knew we were a sleeping giant that we needed to awaken in some way," Kroenke says.
"We haven’t had a squad like this in the social media age. Social media evolved and the Twittersphere and everything else around it. The instantaneous information, the ‘Banter Era’ - I’m aware of all this.
"There was almost a time when you were a closeted Arsenal fan. You were still a fan but everyone was so on top of you at times, you were afraid to show your spirit.
"But the outpouring of emotion and seeing that just driving over here. Everyone is flooding London with all of their Arsenal gear right now. It just makes me so proud to see.”
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