Fabregas feeling at home again

DONALD MCRAEhears former Arsenal player's insight into Barcelona's unique environment, stripped of the romance

A SMALL office at the back of a warehouse, tucked away down a Barcelona side street, is not really an appropriate setting for a romantic story about football. Yet, on an otherwise anonymous evening in his rediscovered home city, Cesc Fabregas sounds smitten. He leans forward and tries to capture the surprise and wonder he feels even when training for the club he loves. “At the training ground it’s unbelievable,” Fabregas says. “This is the best group of footballers I’ve ever seen in my life. If you saw every training session we do you wouldn’t believe it. The quality is incredible. Everyone is so humble and the atmosphere is the best I’ve ever seen.”

The reverence of the former Arsenal icon is now deepened by an understanding of the graft and ambition bolted on to the usual romantic images of Barca. There are moments when he echoes the beguiling “tap, tap, tap” he hears as the ball is tattooed in mesmeric patterns of tiki-taka from one small man to another, from Messi to Xavi to Iniesta to Fabregas himself. But it’s more interesting to hear him describe their desire – which was again apparent this week when, with Lionel Messi scoring five goals, Barcelona beat Bayer Leverkusen 7-1 in the Champions League.

“That’s what shocks me the most,” he says. “This team has won maybe 15 competitions out of 18 the last four seasons and they are still hungry for more. They want to do well and each of these players is worried when they don’t play well. That hunger will help this team go on for a long time.”

Tomorrow, Barca are away to Racing Santander and Fabregas is speaking at an event for Puma, whose new Powercat 12 boot he will wear for the first time. Amid the corporate cheeriness, it is far more significant that Barcelona trail Real Madrid by 10 points in La Liga. The traditional celebratory eulogies for Barca need to be tempered by that stark statistic after 25 league games. It is a chasm that is unlikely to be closed.

Fabregas’s personal conviction is bolstered by Barcelona’s compelling yet spiky encounters with Real this season. “It’s a new experience for me,” he says of playing in El Clasico, “and it’s quite strange that we’ve met Real three times already. We came out of them really well and I enjoyed it a lot. I think I played okay but hopefully in the next one [in April] I can do it even more.”

Barcelona have beaten Real twice at the Bernabeu this season – winning a first-leg Copa del Rey fixture and in La Liga. They were cruising at 2-0 in the return cup tie at home, relishing a 4-1 advantage, and their fans at the Camp Nou taunted Jose Mourinho – who has only managed Real Madrid to one victory in 10 games against Barcelona. “Mourinho, stay!” the Barca fans chanted while flaunting a bogus advert: “Wanted: a worthy rival for a decent Clasico.” Real struck back with two second-half goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

But two wins and a draw against Real make Barca’s 10-point deficit so unexpected. Fabregas, however, can be excused for delighting in his own role at the Bernabeu last December when he scored the final goal in a 3-1 league victory. “It’s definitely a special moment when you score at the Bernabeu.”

In the final against Santos, Barcelona dazzled with the speed and precision of their passing. “It’s impossible to stop Barcelona,” the Brazilian teenage sensation Neymar lamented after Santos lost 4-0. “They are the best team in the world with fantastic players.”

Fabregas was the best player at Arsenal. It has taken him time, he stresses, to adjust to a new kind of disciplined position. “Barcelona have a very specific system and you have to stick to it. Everything is very studied. For my first games there was an adjustment because I was used to my role at Arsenal, where I could move wherever I felt I could make the best contribution. Here, it’s completely different. Everyone has their place and it’s important you stick to your position. It took a while to remember stuff I’d learnt as a kid at Barcelona.”

He endured repeated injuries throughout his last few seasons with Arsenal. The contrast at Barcelona is noticeable. “Physically I’m very strong and very fit. I feel the best I’ve been for three years. I don’t think there’s a specific reason because, here, we play so many games. It’s more that my body was changing from a boy to a man much later than the others.”

How would he compare training at Arsenal and Barcelona? “We train more, here, definitely. It was different at Arsenal. Sometimes after games we’d stay inside the gym but here we’re always outside, with the ball, practising, working tactically. Even if we play almost every three days we hardly have a day off. We train a lot – nearly every day.”

Fabregas’s desire not to offend Arsenal is palpable. Barcelona might once have been infuriated that, after playing with Messi and Gerard Pique at their academy, Fabregas was enticed to Arsenal at 16. Yet the debt he owes to Arsene Wenger and Arsenal is such there is no pretence when Fabregas’s face clouds during discussion of their turbulent season.

“It has been painful,” he says, speaking before the outrageous comeback Arsenal staged against Milan on Tuesday night, when they almost overturned a 4-0 deficit in the Champions League. “It’s been painful because I want them to do well as a club, and they’re my friends and then there is the boss, who I admire so much and who I’m so grateful to.”

Did he see the season’s nadir – that humiliating first leg in Milan? “I watch virtually every Arsenal game,” Has he ever seen Arsenal look as embarrassingly lost as they did against Milan? After a long pause Fabregas says: “Obviously it’s not the same Milan side we played four years ago. They have much better players now. I think more credit must be given to the fact Milan played very well.”

Has he spoken to Wenger recently? “I went to the training ground a few months ago. I spoke to the boss then. I spoke to everybody and they’re happy for me.”

Yet Fabregas, who knows Wenger so well, must wince when seeing how much his mentor has suffered? “Whatever he suffered I suffered it as well. We feel the same and we always try our best. The boss is very strong . . . and I am sure he will find a means to bring Arsenal back to where it belongs. I have no doubt because he’s a great man.”

Fabregas looks uncomfortable when asked if Van Persie will leave if Arsenal fail to qualify for next season’s Champions League. “I don’t know,” Fabregas says. “I don’t like to talk about another person because it happened to me when I was there. It was not easy.”

After the last few seasons of speculation Fabregas must be relieved to have settled back home in Barcelona. “I don’t really look at it that way,” he says. “I learned a lot. I still feel very proud and happy with what I achieved at Arsenal. Now, of course, it’s a different story. I’m living another life and playing another kind of football. I’m very happy now.”

Has he been surprised by the failure of English clubs in the Champions League? “Not really. The Champions League is always very competitive and you don’t have to be the best team to win it. But if Chelsea don’t go through [against Napoli next Wednesday] it’s obviously surprising not to have any English team in the quarter-finals. “In Spain, it’s tactically much stronger than the Premier League. But in England there is this passion . . . A very different kind of football is played in Spain and England. Each has their good points, and their not-so-good points.”

Fabregas’s evocative return to Barcelona is epitomised by him wearing the number four shirt that once belonged to Pep Guardiola, his boyhood idol, who manages the club. Yet, even here, romance gives way. Guardiola’s future at Barcelona remains uncertain; but he is far from a quiet observer in training. “He talks a lot. He’s very demanding. He doesn’t relax one bit. He pushes to the limit . . . He’s always putting pressure on us to keep winning.”

Does Messi, who made scoring a record five goals in a Champions League game look routine, still surprise him, even though Fabregas recognised his genius when they were young boys? “Having him next to you is much, much better than having him against you,” Fabregas says simply. “Messi is obviously very special. You can always learn from the best – and he is definitely the best. But then I’m always looking forward to playing next to Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Busquets and Alves.

“All these players are magnificent footballers and working alongside them is improving my game all the time. That’s why I’m enjoying it so much. I’m learning so much every day at Barcelona.”