There were two Cesc Fábregases at the World Cup in South Africa: the one his team-mates could see and the one they could not. Every night when he closed the door to his hotel room, the smile slipped. On his own, there was sadness and soul searching. In the 116th minute of the final he provided the assist for the most important goal in Spanish football history, playing the ball into the path of Andrés Iniesta. Yet he did so as a substitute and after a month of silent suffering. He had not started one of Spain's six games.

Two years earlier, he had scored the most important penalty in Spanish football history, at last sending the national side smashing through the quarter-final wall that had resisted them for so long. He did that as a substitute too. The following game, the semi-final against Russia, he started on the bench once more but David Villa's injury after thirty-four minutes meant he came on. He provided two assists in a 3-0 win and in Villa's absence started the final, his only start. Spain became European champions.

Fábregas has been at the heart of Spain's greatest moments, but has not always felt like he is at the heart of the Spain team. He has asked himself: what more can I do? The flippant answer might be to play for someone else.

He would surely start for just about any club and any country in the world – except for the club and country he actually plays for. It is seven years since he made his debut against the Ivory Coast in a freezing February night in Valladolid and this is his fourth tournament. The one where he started the most games was his first in 2006, when, at 19, he became the youngest Spaniard to play in the World Cup. He was going to be huge. He has been huge. And yet, somehow, he hasn't.

The quality of the men ahead of him has meant a search for a space. It has meant reinvention; even he would not drop Xavi and Iniesta. Yet he did not want to settle simply for understudy status. If he could not play ahead of them at least he had to play alongside them. Although he always saw himself as a future No4 – the shirt Pep Guardiola signed for him when Fábregas was a kid declared him to be exactly that – he would not drop Sergio Busquets either. And Vicente del Bosque's determination to play Busquets alongside Xabi Alonso meant that when it came to Spain another body stood between him and a starting place.

One of the many reasons that Fábregas decided to leave Arsenal for Barcelona was to force his way into the Spain side. If at club level he could play with Xavi and Iniesta and Busquets, rather than in competition with them, then he would show that he could do the same for his national team too. He would also be back in view in Spain.

"I always thought that if you play well, in theory, you'll play for Spain," Fábregas said soon after joining Barcelona. "But I had periods for Arsenal when I thought I was playing brilliantly, when I thought: 'bloody hell, I have to be in this time', but… I would play fantastically, get to the squad and not play. You do wonder if it helps [to be in Spain]. Iniesta and Xavi are the best players in the world and I'm never, ever going to question them but there are other positions too …"

Like the false No9. When he made his debut there for Barcelona in the pre-season Gamper Trophy, Fábregas admitted that the first, incredulous thought that came to his mind was: "One day I'll be able to tell people that I played as Barcelona's centre-forward. I never thought I'd be Barcelona's No9. When you stop and think about Romário, Kluivert, some of the real stars that have played there, wow!"

It was a welcome discovery. "I'm enjoying it," he said. "It's not really centre-forward, at least not a fixed one. It's mobile."

Playing that role for Barcelona alongside Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta, Fábregas was the country's top-scoring "midfielder" until Christmas. Although he did not score after February, he insists that he was satisfied with his first season. Del Bosque had tried David Silva as a false No9. Now, watching Fábregas he saw another candidate. Injury to Villa, as in 2008, was opportunity. Reinvention meant re-evaluation. Not that everyone is happy. For all the debate, for all that there are calls for a striker to be included against Ireland, it was Cesc who scored Spain's goal in the opening match. "And with that llegada, that arrival from deep, and movement that we were trying to achieve," Del Bosque said.

The Spain coach also insisted on the defensive qualities of Fábregas's role, pointing out that he had been used to block Andrea Pirlo from being able to play out from the back. "And," he said pointedly, "without reducing our attacking potential at all."

If that sounded like a kick in the teeth for his actual strikers, kicking their heels on the bench while a midfielder played ahead of them, Del Bosque disagreed. "We have trust in all of them," he said. "And I am convinced that all three of them [Fernando Torres, Alvaro Negredo and Fernando Llorente] will give the best service."

Del Bosque was asked for his starting XI so many times and in so many different ways that by the end he was giggling away with the rest. "I know it," he said, "but I am not saying." The Pirlo remark implied that Fabregas's role was Italy-specific, as did Del Bosque's protest that complaints have come after "just one game", but it is natural for Cesc to see in this the opportunity that has not always been there before. The feeling here was that he will start again. His second start. The same number as in the whole of Germany 2006, more than Euro2008 or South Africa 2010.

"I am a little bit further forward [than a normal central midfield role], so I am receiving the ball from behind and the side," Fabregas said. "I am not receiving the ball facing the goal as often with my back to it or sideways on. It is a position I have been playing in a lot this season and I am happy there. I have mobility and the freedom to go where I think the chances are best and where I see space. We have mobility with Andrés and David. We can combine and look for one-twos. I think it worked well.

"I cannot say I dislike it," he continued, adding: "but it is up to the manager. It has taken me a long time. It has been hard for me [to become a starter]. I have been with the national team for seven years and I never stopped thinking that my time would arrive. I always did all that I could to take my chances, whether I went on for five minutes or 10, or 20. I am the perfect age now [at 24] and it is the first tournament that I have gone into as a starter. I hope that I can now stay there for a long time."