It’s nearly a bizarre football injury to rival David Seaman breaking a bone while reaching for his TV remote or David Batty damaging an Achilles when his toddler ran him over on a tricycle. We’re at TreeHouse school in Muswell Hill and William Gallas and Cesc Fabregas have their socks off and bare feet soaked in paint. The pupils here are severely autistic and the players are helping them create artworks, some of which will be auctioned to help build a sports hall. Gallas steps on a canvas but amid the riot of happy children concentration wavers easily. Muscles brace in multi-million pound legs as Arsenal’s captain makes a momentary slip. Relief abounds: he’s okay.

Fabregas, making his footprints, is dainty and exact. “I learnt from William,” he smiles. “I saw it was slippery and tried to be secure.” How like him. Survey, assess, decide, execute with precision: it’s a vision thing and what Fabregas is about. It underpins every calculated pass, each clever interception, each finely angled run and spotlessly timed tackle.

Now this Catalan has also discovered scoring it feels, aged just 20, that he somehow knows the keys to all the game’s ciphers and codes. He sees clearly, too, when it comes to life’s wider vistas. Shoes back on, there’s a kick-about, photo-taking and much clapping and laughing with the TreeHouse kids. “It’s great if you can make them smile and, me and William,” says Fabregas, “we enjoyed it more than them.”

There’s nothing put on about his humility. Other top players like Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes, two rivals he lionizes, are similar. It’s a mentality that goes beyond modesty, for to be modest is to know your worth but conceal it. Fabregas, Gerrard, Scholes: they simply don’t see what’s special about being special. Fabregas is already projected as Footballer of the Year and Emmanuel Adebayor said he is the best on the planet. “Thanks Ade,” he blushes. “I’m a star? No. No chance,” he says. “It’s not about that anyway, it’s about doing what I love, playing football, playing for one of the best clubs in the world. I have a job I like. After, I go home and I rest and I watch my programmes. I live my normal life and I’m very happy.”

There’s no point asking Fabregas how good he thinks he is. Nor Arsenal fans – it’s like asking Christians if they thought Jesus was a decent fellow. A cautionary voice amid the worship was raised by Sir Alex Ferguson who suggested Fabregas and other brilliant youngsters cannot be regarded as great players, because they have not yet got the medals. “Yeah, he’s right,” says Fabregas. “I 100% agree with him. I can’t say I’m a great player. And I always say at Arsenal we’re a very, very good side but not a great side. When we win something together as a group we can say we’re great but, right now, we’re just a good side.

“You’ve been successful when you’ve won trophies. When you’ve won European Championships, World Cups, Premier Leagues, Champions Leagues: then you can say you’re a success. Right now I can’t say anything. I just have an FA Cup.”

It is more than two years since we last met properly. Then, Fabregas had just turned 18, was staying in digs with Philippe Senderos, travelling by Tube and burbling excitedly about sitting his driving test. “Life’s changed a lot,” he laughs, “all the things you’ve said. I don’t live with Phillippe, I passed my driving lessons and I don’t take the underground . . . but I could take the underground, it’s no problem,” he adds quickly. “It’s just I prefer to go by taxi or car.”

The joy of Cesc: Inevitably it involves scoring. Goals, which used to come round for him as regularly as the seasons of the year, are now a weekly occurrence. Eleven arrived in the first 152 games Fabregas played for Arsenal; 11 more in the past 15. The run has coincided neatly with Thierry Henry’s departure and is elevating his profile to the extent he is replacing Henry not just as Arsenal’s totem but the most celebrated foreign footballer in the English game. Shaking his head, Fabregas sighs: “I’m playing exactly the same.”

The transformation, if there’s been one, is explained in team terms. “It’s true I feel more free to go forward and that’s down to [Mathieu] Flamini. He doesn’t stop running, chasing the opponent. He has amazing energy. We had a bet, Tomas Rosicky, Alex Hleb, Mathieu and me about who’d score most this season, and Matt tells me, ‘Hey, if you always go forward I cannot score’. So I must give him two goals, maybe.”

The wager already seems over with Flamini yet to score and Rosicky and Hleb on three. “Alex is another reason. The football we like to play is more or less the same. Outside, we are very close friends and that helps because I understand the way he thinks and he understands me. Alex is the kind of player who makes you play better, he makes you look better, certainly. I swear, if Alex was not in the team I don’t think I’d have scored 11 goals.”

Without Henry dominating the area in front of Arsenal’s midfield, Fabregas can break free of his line and play further up the pitch, as he did against Liverpool at Anfield to devastating effect. “I’m trying to pull players with me because our centre-backs have more space to come out with the ball and Alex more to move into. He never gives the ball away and when he gets it I’m so confident I can go, because I know he’ll be able to turn because he has such quick hips and good feet.”

Still, Fabregas cannot dodge, completely, taking credit for the spate. Rather like Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, he has become a surer scorer with time; perhaps finishing is a knack even the most natural talents have to perfect: Fabregas scored just four times last season and yet he was often in the box.

In the summer, Arsène Wenger called him to his office. “The boss told me, ‘You have to be calm’. He showed me a video-tape and said, ‘See? You have more time than you think.’ Before there was something in my head saying, ‘Score!’ and I wanted to do things quick, without thinking. The good example is my goal against Man United. I had control of the ball and [Edwin] Van der Sar and [Rio] Ferdinand in front of me and time to put it past them. Last year my body would have gone towards the floor,” he says showing himself leaning back, “and the ball would have gone into the stand. Of course, I’m not perfect every time. There was the chance I missed against Liverpool [Fabregas skied a rebound] and I remember one against Steaua Bucharest, just two metres from goal.

“What I’ve learnt is that goals really make a difference to how people see you. People are saying Cesc is better because he’s scoring. I don’t know, I had the same chances last season, I’m the same player. But, now, I can really feel how a goal can change everything for you, and the person who is repeating that most to me is my national coach, Luis Aragones. He’s always saying, ‘You have to score, a goal is the most important thing in football’.”

Last time we spoke, Fabregas recounted how his all-time hero was that great Catalan passer (and nonscorer) Josep Guardiola, and opined: “It’s even better, the assist, than scoring the goal.” He grins. “To be honest, for me an assist, until last year was amazing but now . . . when you score goals . . . let’s just say you get the taste.”

He “must never forget,” he adds, “my real job on the pitch is to pass. It’s not going to be like this all my life. I’m not going to score every week. I wish. Henry can do it, and Romario, but not me. Scholes is an amazing player. I admire him a lot, and Gerrard too. Their common thing is they get forward and score important goals. In the key moments they come through for their teams.”

At Anfield a fortnight ago Fabregas was as important to Arsenal as Gerrard to Liverpool, which says it all about the young man. Scholes was absent when Manchester United visited the Emirates stadium last week and drew 2-2 but Fabregas and an even younger tyro, Anderson, delighted with a contest which was anything but callow in terms of ruggedness, technique and guile.

The two games were billed as the first real test for Arsenal’s young, post-Henry side. Did it pass? “Well, we didn’t win but we didn’t lose and we were behind both times,” says Fabregas. “When you come back and get the point by scoring late the result, for each team, is the same, but we go home with heads up and they go home with heads down. That’s very important for our confidence.

“I think in both games we were superior, especially against Liverpool.

“Everyone in Spain said, ‘You were so good, how did you only draw?’ Against Man United we were superior in that we had more possession but actually a draw was okay. I love Man United and the way they play. They’re an amazing side. You could see how they don’t really have the ball but when they get it do a counter attack, so quick. They get to your goal in two seconds. It was a good point for both sides. Now the important thing is to keep winning against the other teams, beginning with Reading.”

It was “other teams” that posed Arsenal problems last season. The club finished 21 points behind Manchester United because of failures against the likes of Sheffield United and Fulham. “This year the attitude’s very good. Last season I can’t remember how many times we were 1-0 down and then it’s so difficult. You’re going to come back maybe seven times, but three times you’re not, and those points go. Now we’re more mature and know what we want to achieve, which is winning the league. And I can guarantee you now our togetherness is very high. No player is above the others. Jealousy is very bad for a team and doesn’t exist with us.”

Friendships are such that when Wenger gave them time off in midweek, Fabregas and Hleb went together to watch Barcelona v Rangers. Fabregas also spent time with his girlfriend, Carla, visiting family and friends in the port town near Barcelona he is from, Arenys de Mar. “I love my friends,” says Fabregas, “because they’ve known me since I was small and treat me like always. They kid me, they make jokes, they take the peees.” His mother, Nuria, is director of a sales company, his father, Francesc, runs a construction firm.

Had he not worn football boots for a living, Fabregas would be in a hard hat. “It’s a family business, my grandad had it, my great grandad. The year before I came to Arsenal, I wanted to go and help my dad and if I wasn’t a player I’d be doing what my friends do, working with their parents, trying to get money any way they can.”

If I wasn’t a player? Fabregas, who will pass 200 Arsenal appearances long before his 21st birthday, seems so much a natural footballer it’s astonishing the concept even crossed his mind. “I never thought I was going to be a footballer until I played against Everton. It was only when I made my debut and had such a good year I started to realise I’d like to keep this job and do it for a number of years.” Extraordinary. When Fabregas refers to Everton and his ‘debut’ he means his first match in the Premier League.

The boy who takes nothing for granted had, until then, “only” been the youngest player and scorer in Arsenal’s history via appearances in the Carling Cup, and been player of the tournament at the Youth World Cup.

Perhaps his attitude comes from Francesc Sr, who was not “one of those dads who goes crazy with their sons, saying, ‘You have to be a footballer’.” If trophies are his focus, he seems unlikely to forget the basic reasons he plays the game. His physique remains more Scholes-like than Gerrard-esque despite a voluntary gym regime. But he succeeds through craft. In a similar way Arsenal and Manchester United are prospering without succumbing to the modern mania for a power-based game.

“This is a good sign because every year football seems to be getting more and more about long balls, heading, strength . . . ach, I don’t really enjoy that type of play,” Fabregas says. “When Johan Cruyff was Barcelona coach with his ‘Dream Team’ in the early Nineties it was always 5-4, the games were so open and that’s the football I fell in love with. Now it’s so difficult to score goals because teams are just defending. I understand it, because if you come to the Emirates just to play maybe we’ll score a lot, but football’s about entertaining and it’s good to see the teams who like to play at the top.”

The aesthete has a confession: he’s not above vandalising the beautiful game himself. “For four years [in Barcelona’s youth sides] I played with [Lionel] Messi, my good friend. He’s so quick with the ball and, me, so slow. So many times, I tell you, I’d have to run after him and kick him as hard as I could. He was always going past me and sometimes I’d get angry and just . . . boom . . . from behind. Not good.”

Arsenal aim to make £250,000 for TreeHouse which is part government-sponsored but relies on fundraising for “extras” which seem like essentials, such as speech therapy, and specialist PE provision. It’s a pioneering facility whose new buildings, on completion next year, will form the national centre for autism education. Nick Hornby, its co-founder, hands Fabregas a copy of Fever Pitch in Spanish translation which the player thumbs with interest. A speaker of four languages he likes words. Applying footprints to canvas, however, is as good as he gets at art. “I was very bad at school, I cannot paint,” he grins. Isn’t Barcelona famous for artists? “I wasn’t there that day.”

While back home, he visited his tutor at college. He is sitting the Spanish equivalent of A-levels through distance learning and hopes to pass exams in May that would push him towards university.

The Spanish press, who require little invitation to link Fabregas with a return to Spain, seized on his visit to speculate about a move to Barcelona, whom he left to join Arsenal in 2003.

It is the closest this sunny lad comes to clouding over. “I don’t think much of those stories,” he says. “Sometimes I read things written by people who know nothing about me. They say I’m confused because I don’t want to go back to Arsenal, I want to come to Barcelona – but this is just rubbish. All I can say is that I’m very happy. I love Arsenal, the club, the fans, my teammates. I want to stay. If it’s for the rest of my life, all the better.” Fabregas is contracted with Arsenal until 2014 and English football should be thankful. His early years have been a pleasure, watching his full-grown ones should be a privilege.

www.treehouse.org.uk

Come back, Cesc!

— Cesc Fabregas is rated as the Premier League’s best player so far this season, prompting a Spanish newspaper campaign to take him back to Spain. Sport, the Barcelona-based daily newspaper, yesterday announced that 77% of Barça supporters want the club to sign Fabregas next summer. The paper spelt out exactly why he was perfect for the club by turning his name into an acronym of excellence: C for Catalan; E for Effective, S for a Safe Bet, C for cule (or Barça fan)

— Sport is confi dent that Fabregas would be only too eager to return, but As, a paper with a Real Madrid bias, contradicted the idea. The paper quoted the Arsenal player saying he ‘had more and more desire to fi nish his career in the Premier League’, even if the odd game in England bored him: ‘I watch West Ham against Bolton and almost fall asleep’.

Mining for talent: the Barça finishing school

— Cesc Fabregas is a product of Barcelona’s cantera – or the mine – and in the Catalan city they are proud of the production line of talented young footballers that has been churned out by their equivalent of the British academy system

— Barcelona are seeing a special generation emerge from their youth team of four years ago. Arsenal’s Fabregas, Manchester United defender Gerard Pique, and Barça forward Lionel Messi have all graduated to take their places with some of the elite clubs of the European game

— Apart from Messi, the current Barcelona first-team squad boasts a further seven players who have risen through the Nou Camp youth system – the others being Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Victor Valdes, Oleguer Presas, Bojan Krkic and Giovani dos Santos

— Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina is another well-known product of the Barça cantera, along with Merseyside rival Mikel Arteta, now a midfi elder with Everton

Football’s teen idols

Sergio Aguero, age 19 (Argentina and Atletico Madrid)
Outstanding at the under-20 World Cup last summer, Aguero has begun his second season at Atletico Madrid on fi re. He has already been hailed as the new Leo Messi, and is perhaps an even surer fi nisher. He has thrived since taking on more responsibility since Fernando Torres left for Liverpool

Lulinha, 17 (Corinthians and Brazil)
The new Ronaldinho, right, with startling close control. Already linked with Barcelona, Internazionale, Milan and lately with Chelsea, his promise had been talked up across Brazil since his very early teens. It is anticipated Lulinha will move to Europe within the next 18 months

Bojan Krkic 17 (Barcelona and Spain or Serbia)
Suddenly the subject of a tug-of-war between the country of his mother, Spain, and of his father, a former Serbian professional. Bojan, as he is known, grew up in Spain, joined the Barcelona academy and has represented Spain in age-group football. His form since his debut for Barcelona and his family tree have led to a promise from Serbia head coach Javier Clemente that, if they qualify, the Balkan state would take Bojan to Euro 2008

Karim Benzema, 19 (Lyon and France)
Another goal in the Champions League in midweek took his total for the season for club and country to 14. Born in France to Algerian parents, Benzema, left, is already a target for Real Madrid

Micah Richards,19 (Manchester City and England)
The England revelation of the Steve McClaren era. A great athlete, with strength, speed and aerial power. Already comfortable switching across the back four from full-back to centre-half, he will be hard to remove from the England team even with a full pool of defenders to choose from