Omer Riza has admitted that his biggest regret in football was walking away from Arsenal without signing a new contract, revealing that it was his impatience that cost him the chance to establish himself under Arsène Wenger.
Riza, who joined Arsenal’s academy at the age of nine and made his only senior appearance in a League Cup win over Derby County in 1998, told The Football League Paper that his decision to leave was driven by frustration at what he perceived to be selection politics within the youth setup.
“My biggest regret at Arsenal is not signing a new contract when it was offered,” said Riza. “I was too impatient. I could see other players being picked for political reasons rather than performance and that frustrated me.
“These days, I always tell my players to be patient, keep working hard and you’ll get your just rewards. I didn’t follow my own advice.”
After leaving Arsenal in 1999, Riza joined West Ham United, where he trained alongside a generation of England internationals. “Our squad had some of the best English players to come through in a long, long time,” he recalled. “Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, Rio Ferdinand. We had David James and Trevor Sinclair, who were both internationals as well.”
Although Riza never broke through at senior level for Arsenal or West Ham, he built a varied career that included spells in the Netherlands with ADO Den Haag and in Turkey with Denizlispor and Trabzonspor, where a long-running contractual dispute eventually sidelined him for over a year.
“I was thinking ‘Wow, I’ve come out of Trabzon, I’ve played Osasuna in Europe and my contract was worth this much,’” he said. “Now I’m in and out of the team at Shrewsbury and earning next to nothing. How did I get here?”
That experience, he says, forced him to reconsider his future. “I’d never really thought about life after football,” Riza admitted. “But sitting there at Shrewsbury with an uncertain future, it made me start to reflect and say ‘What’s next? What am I going to do?’”
It was the beginning of a coaching journey that has since taken him from non-league management to senior roles at Watford, Leyton Orient, and Cardiff City, where he recently served as interim head coach in the Championship.
Currently without a club and reflecting on the lessons of his career, Riza said: “I don’t care if someone’s a superstar. There’s certain things I expect from my players, whether that’s character or application or respect for the environment. If they don’t give that, then they won’t be around my teams. I’ve learned that from some of the best in the world.”
Now 45, Riza remains a respected figure in English coaching circles, particularly for his work in youth development. Yet his reflections on his time in North London carry a note of regret and that many young professionals could learn from.