Borrell, who now coaches Liverpool's under 18s, got together with Guardiola, then a youth team coach at the Camp Nou himself, and the legendary midfielder signed one of his shirts with the message that ''One day you will be Barca's Number 4'' also written in indelible ink. It left an indelible impression on Fabregas. Guardiola was already his hero, the footballer who young Cesc had modelled himself on and the guy he wanted to emulate. But it's in the younger Catalan's nature to set that aside, to inflict more damage to Guardiola than almost anything else in football could do and knock Barcelona out of the Champions League in three weeks. It's possible that the sublime goal created by Samir Nasri and scored by Andrei Arshavin, the rampaging display in midfield by Jack Wilshere or even the bravura night from the Gunners' young goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny distracted attention from the fact Fabregas snapped and hassled and exposed Barcelona on Thursday. Last season he scored a late penalty to square the tie against Barcelona, in the 2006 Champions League final he left his heart, soul and lashings of sweat on the Stade de France pitch in Paris while trying to deny the club he loves its second European crown.

I was going to say that it's nothing personal, purely business. But it is personal - something deep within him that he cannot control. It's innate. "I'm very, very competitive indeed" he explains. "I just don't know how to live as a footballer without demanding more and more from myself - it's why I can get frustrated and short-tempered sometimes. "If we win I want to have scored a goal or made one. If I score I want the team to hit five or six more. I'm like that in training, at tennis, on PlayStation … everything. Being competitive is like a 'need' within me." Tito Vilanova, Barcelona's assistant coach to Guardiola confirms that: "When I had Cesc in my youth team he really used to worry me. I'd say, 'good game today son, five-nil win, good work'. And he'd always answer 'no Mister, I gave the ball away once' or 'I missed a better pass than the one I gave'. He was an incredible perfectionist as a kid, a footballer who is made out of competitiveness." I was lucky enough to be FIFA's television producer for the Spain team in South Africa last summer, a remarkable journey which took me from the quiet university town of Potchefstroom to inside the winning team's dressing room in Soccer City, Soweto. One day in Ellis Park, Vicente Del Bosque and I were waiting in a corridor for Cesc to finish chatting in a press conference. Del Bosque turned to me with a real twinkle in his eye and said: "You know Cesc is really pissed off with me … I mean REALLY".

He grinned and then yelled at the player, as he came down the corridor, "here, come and talk to someone who knows about football". It was all about the fact that Fabregas wasn't starting for Spain, wasn't even getting much game time. The Spanish press were starting to make mischief, to ask if his head was ''gone'' because of a possible transfer to Barcelona and because he was so down at not playing in the World Cup. But Fabregas explained it to me. "Under no circumstances was I hacked off with the coach,'' he said. "But I was, genuinely, pissed off. With myself, with the world, with my situation … with everything." During our interview I asked: "Is your role just to sort out your focus and be ready just in case there is a golden moment coming and you're not ready?" "That's it, that's exactly my challenge," he accepted.

Just under two weeks later he was two metres from me on the touchline, warming up with Fernando Torres. Torres was equally disheartened, dropped for the semi-final win over Germany and, with extra-time already disappearing, still not called to play. El Nino had lost heart; he was lackadaisical in his warm-up. But Cesc was ferocious. Tearing up and down the turf, shouting encouragement to teammates and arguing with the assistant referee over a corner kick decision. Moments later he was on. Moments after that he won the World Cup, pouncing on a loose ball like a tom-cat on a dozy mouse, and setting Iniesta up to score. He was ready.

Ready too, when asked to play as a second striker in the Euro 2008 final, deputising for the injured David Villa. Which means that he has won precisely the same number of trophies with Spain than he has with Arsenal. Remarkable and, for him, intolerable. "I'm very selfish in my professional life, I cannot deny that," is his self portrait. "As a person I'd like to say that I'm not selfish at all, but as a footballer you have to accept this trait and be honest about it. I want to be the leader, I want to win, I want trophies and I want to feel important." ''Important'' is precisely how Cesc Fabregas felt on November 11, 1997.

It was the first time he ever put a studded boot into the Camp Nou playing surface when, as a treat for its excellence, his youth team was allowed to train there one night. He never played a competitive match there, missing last season's quarter-final because of a leg injury, and there will be a mighty roar from both the travelling Gooners and the partisan Catalans when his name is read out at the Camp Nou when battle re-commences on March 8. Suddenly he's not only ''hecho toro'' as they say in Spain, strong as a bull, but fit. Last September Arsene Wenger permitted Fabregas to employ a personal physio, Juan Ferrando who reorientated his posture, fed him potassium, antioxidants and green tea, ordered highly specific muscle strengthening around the hamstrings and has helped Arsenal's captain play 15 consecutive games of between 80 and 90 minutes for the first time in a remarkable seven years. Ferrando has become a friend, too, and admits: "Cesc would kill to play in the Camp Nou for Arsenal.

"It's genuinely a dream which obsesses him and, this time, no injury, no barrier of any kind is going to stop him." However Wenger decides to defend his team's 2-1 lead; however the Gunners perform as a team I'm telling you now: Cesc will be ready. Again.