Interviewer: Arsenal v Newcastle - what happened?

Jonas Gutierrez: I had a very hard collision with Sagna in the area of the pubic bone and the genitals. From then I had a lot of pain that wouldn't go away. It was the last game of the season. I spoke with the doctor straight after [the game] and he said: 'If it doesn't hurt then don't worry I don't think it is anything [to worry about].

Then it was holiday time and I felt the pain more in the testicle. We started the pre-season, the season started and in September, October. I noticed that the testicle started to become inflamed. I felt a pain when I put my underpants on; it was uncomfortable. I went back to the doctor and they told me to have an ultrasound scan and they detected a tumour and told me I needed an operation. I couldn't understand why they were using the word tumour and not cancer so I asked them: 'Is it cancer?' and they confirmed that it was.

I left the clinic crying and went home and told my dad who was there. I spoke to the club and said because of the delicate nature of the problem and because in Argentina I was going to understand everything being told to me better, I wanted to be treated in Argentina.

Interviewer: You came to Argentina, they took out the left testicle and they told you 'ciao cancer'.

JG: In October they operated and took out the seminoma (tumour); I had to rest and they reassured me that it had not spread and that I didn't need any more treatment at the moment; I just had to recover from the operation.

Interviewer: You go back to England, to Newcastle, and what did they tell you there?

JG: I was training by the end of November, the team was in a good moment [of form] and in the middle of December the coach told me that the best option was that I looked for a [new] club.

Interviewer: Did that surprise you?

JG: Yes, obviously because I had always been playing, for five years, always playing, and to then go to the situation where they wanted to loan me out…

Interviewer: You go to Norwich...

JG: Chris was there who had been my coach at Newcastle and I started playing. I played two games but I injured my calf and missed seven matches.

I was coming back, being named on the bench and coming on as a substitute but the coach changed. And I did not enter in the new manager's plans. There was a month left [until the end of the season] but I never played a single minute.

Interviewer: And you still had a contract with Newcastle. All the costs of the treatment you paid yourself?

JG: Yes, I came here, they treated me and I took on the costs but the money is not the important thing. The most important thing is [good] health.

Interviewer: Then you went on holiday to Las Vegas with your friends.

JG: The last day [of the season] we went to Las Vegas and when I came back I had to go for my five-month check-up and they detected inflammation of the ganglions in that area for which the treatment was a course of chemotherapy.

Interviewer: How long for?

JG: I have one more session to go. And then I will need two more months to recuperate. The most difficult part – the Chemo – is about to finish.

Interviewer: what support did you receive?

JG: No one really knew about it at first. Gradually you start telling people. Some people saw me without hair and if they were not close friends or family I would say I had done it for a promise. What are you going to tell them without telling them everything?

There were people who found out, I don't know how, for example 'El Gringo' [Gabriel] Heinze, and he called me and we were talking for a long time and he told me to keep on fighting. And he's a tough guy with a lot of strength and that gave me strength him telling me that I would overcome it.

And after the operation I spoke to 'El Pocho' [Ezequiel Lavezzi] and Martin Demichelis and don't even talk to me about 'El Colo'!

Interviewer: [Fabricio] Coloccini?

JG: Yes. We had been together six years there [at Newcastle] and he spoke to me and he visited me and he worried about me. I love him like one of my family.

Interviewer: They were big games for you in the South Africa World Cup. Diego Maradona said you were 'in his heart' that you were the third name on his teamsheet. But this is the match of your life.

JG: Sometimes you think about things and then when a problem, like the one I have to go through at the moment, comes along it makes you realise that all the other problems are insignificant.

Obviously this is the most difficult game I have had to play but like all games it will have an end to it and the end is closer now.

Interviewer: And your parents want to be grandparents at some point! They have taken out a testicle. Do you have to freeze sperm from the other testicle for the future or is it something that you feel is too far off and you don't even want to think about it?

JG: When you have this problem they send you to the sperm bank and you leave various samples of sperm in case the other testicle (starts laughing) in case the other one doesn't work. But I have every confidence that the other one will work. We have full confidence for the moment.

Interviewer: So the left one has gone now Jonas Gutierrez has to play on the right!

JG: Yes, everything down the right but I still believe! And if not, we will have to go looking [for the samples left] in the bank!

Interviewer: Why tell your story now?

JG: It's something very personal but the other day I received an email about an actress who is going through something very similar and she was showing photographs of when she had hair and when she lost her hair and what she was going through and I think there is nothing bad in telling your story; it can even help people and encourage them to fight.