“You want to know the names?” Miralem Pjanic asks after it is teased out of him that on two occasions he turned down the opportunity to join Premier League clubs. “They were Arsenal and Tottenham.”

The answer is significant, of course, as it means Juventus' elegant midfielder could have been lining up for Spurs in their Champions League last 16 tie on Tuesday rather than against them in those famous black-and-white stripes.

That, however, is just a footnote of Pjanic's life story. We meet at the Italian club’s vast training ground to the south of Turin, where he has just finished training. Over the course of an hour, he gives a powerful account of the journey he has taken from being a “small kid from a small town” to “one of the best in my position in the world”.

That is not a boast - Pjanic is an unassuming, attentive character, fluent in five languages. It is just what Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri promised he would turn him into when Pjanic signed from Roma in 2016.

Four years before that, Pjanic had been asked to replace Luka Modric at Spurs after the playmaker was sold to Real Madrid. “There was the opportunity but at that moment I told them I was happy where I was and that’s why we didn’t sign the deal,” explains Pjanic, who had previously rejected Arsenal while he was still in France with Lyon. “But I made my choice using my head and if I made that choice not to go to an English team it was for good reasons.”

Pjanic could have been playing for Spurs tomorrow night credit: AFP

His decision has paid off. The 27-year-old is the regista at the heart of one of the best sides in world football in Juventus, where he has earned the nickname 'the pianist' because of the mellifluous way he controls the play.

“I like that name,” he says, laughing. “I think I was called the pianist because of the way I play. It’s true that I don’t score many goals, just a few, but they are beautiful when I do score! I think it’s more about my style of play, how I touch the ball, how I pass the ball, how I move it. It’s a nice nickname but I want to effect things through what I do and not through words.”

Pjanic's words resonate more than most, however, and particularly when he reflects on the “dream” he had of being a footballer and the importance of his homeland, Bosnia.

Pjanic - a Bosnian Muslim - comes from Tuzla, once the industrial centre of Tito’s Yugoslavia, but was forced to flee, along with his family, in 1991 as war loomed large.

Pjanic’s father, Fahrudin, was a footballer in the Yugoslav third division for a club called Drina Zvornik. Playing in small towns, Fahrudin could sense the mounting tension in the country and when he was offered a way out - through a club in Luxembourg wanting him to play for them semi-professionally - he was desperate to take it.

“It was already clear that the war was coming and that’s why my father decided to move to Luxembourg, which I consider my second home,” Pjanic says. “Certainly the war was very, very bad for the whole of Yugoslavia and there was a lot of suffering in Bosnia, in particular. There were so many injustices.

“The first time I want back was in 1996 and there were still the signs of the war, they were visible. I remember seeing the American soldiers who were there as part of the peace-keeping process. They were trying to do their best.

Pjanic and his family fled the war in Bosnia credit: Daniele Badolato/Getty images

“I am very close to my country. I have always lived abroad but inside my family we always speak in Bosnian and preserve all the Bosnian traditions. So it’s always inside me, always in my heart. When I could choose which national team to play for, I could choose between Luxembourg, France and Bosnia and I chose Bosnia because I felt it was important to demonstrate, especially to the young people, that a dream can become true.

“I wanted to become a positive example and to show all the youngsters that if you believe in something, you can obtain great results. For a small kid from a small town it was possible for me to do great things. That was the kind of example I wanted to give. I want to help the kids who still live there.”

Pjanic was a baby, a few months old, when he left with his mother Fatima. “When my parents left Tuzla they left with nothing,” Pjanic says. “But they wanted to create a very serene and quiet life for their children. They wanted to go to work and give their children opportunities, to grow and raise their children. And that’s what they did.

“My dream was to become a footballer. I started loving football so much that I followed my dad wherever he went and spent all my time playing football with friends out in the fields. But my parents also taught me the important values and principles in life of respect and to raise me in that way.

"Of course it was not always perfect. It was hard to reach this level. But my dream was to become a football player and that’s what I have become. It was not only luck. It was determination.”

In Luxembourg, Fahrudin worked in a factory by day and trained and played at night to earn more money. His wife worked in the evenings and it meant Pjanic often went to practice sessions with his father. Football, already in his blood, became his life.

Pjanic was on the losing side in last season's Champions League final credit: reuters

“There was no money to pay for someone to look after me,” Pjanic says. “My father went to work at 7am and then came back at 4pm and my mum went to work at 5pm until 10pm. After work my father would go to training, to earn a bit more money, but also because he wanted to be involved as he always loved football. And so that’s why he took me with him.

“I used to spend my time in the dressing room and everybody knew me. I got used to being in that environment and loved it. My father saw that and enrolled me in my first club (FC Schifflange 95, in Luxembourg) and gradually I improved, I got better and better and played with older players. When I was 13 they saw there was something special in me and I started playing for Metz.”

Pjanic says it was the “best choice I ever made” because the French club had a history of developing young players. It was there that he had his most precious football moment to date: “The first professional match that I played for Metz when I was 17-years-old and three months. It was when the dream came true. No-one expected it, no-one thought I was ready and I made my debut in front of my family and friends. It was against Paris Saint-Germain.”

Pjanic is now a key cog in Juventus' well-oiled machine, having helped the club to the Champions League final last season, when they lost to Real Madrid - their second final defeat in three seasons having also lost to Barcelona in 2015.

Pjanic is determined that Juventus can go one better this time round. The Italian champions, also aiming for a seventh successive league title, are in formidable form. Despite a raft of injuries they completed 11 hours without conceding a goal in the impressive 2-0 win over Fiorentina on Friday. They have not conceded at all in 2018.

Nevertheless Spurs are a dangerous opponent. Pjanic, such an influential performer that comparisons with his midfield predecessor Andrea Pirlo are not flattering, acknowledges the challenge.

“We are very competitive, very hungry and we definitely want to win it (the Champions League),” Pjanic says. “But Tottenham are a great team.” And as for the pianist - what can we expect?

“I am very good at keeping the ball, I ask for the ball and I aim to help make my team-mates play and try and serve them as much as possible,” he explains. “I remember when I signed the contract to come here to Juventus, Allegri told me that I could become one of the best in this position in the world. I need to improve but that's what I want.”