Abidal: Dani Alves wanted to share part of his liver and join me in this fight LaLiga - Barcelona Pair were incredibly close

Barcelona were on top of the world in 2011, the club was living through one of the greatest periods in their history when all of a sudden Eric Abidal revealed he had a tumour in his liver.

It brought the group together in a way few could imagine possible, and the Frenchman has even admitted Dani Alves wanted to share part of his own liver.

The French defender would make a full recovery after much painstaking treatment and a setback in 2012.

"Dani Alves wanted to share part of his liver and join me in this fight," he explained in an interview with Super Deportivo Radio.

"I said no, but I knew the importance of his gesture, it would have been so hard for him to cope with his life as a footballer if it had gone ahead, I think he understood my message.

"At that time, all the players were part of my family."

It's bizarre how football players and personalities are often viewed as superhuman figures.

Their incredible talent can cloud people's judgement of their human characteristics, and you can see this in the acute sense of shock at Sir Alex Ferguson's battle against a brain haemorrhage.

Abidal's struggle was no different, however, the former French international has made clear just how difficult it was to focus on his health as opposed to football, breaking the cycle he'd been living in throughout his career.

"Every day I remember how hard it was to live with cancer," he intimated.

"I learnt a lot about myself and the people around me.

"Football was my passion and career, but during this time there isn't much time to think, after my illness it was different, you are just focused on helping other people."

The only response to the discovery of the tumour on Abidal's liver was a transplant, and it would be a long road from that point before he was back to full health.

"I remember when they told me about the tumour, and how they didn't know when, but the next step was a transplant," he detailed.

"From that moment, you know everything will be a total struggle and everyday life will be complicated, that was when football actually helped me.

"In football I could make a mistake, but the next day I had to get up and fight again, this helped me to fight my illness, even when there were days I was incredibly tired, I just had to fight to get to tomorrow."