2004 – 2005 MY MOVE TO BARCELONA

I joined the Barca squad for their pre-season tour of the Far East and it was a good chance to get to know the players. They all seemed like great lads and watching Ronaldinho on the training pitch was something else. When we were back in Spain I moved into a house next door to Gio (van Bronckhorst) and began to settle in. I got a little shock a month later when we drew Celtic in the Champions League. Part of me couldn´t believe it, but I also thought it was typical of the tricks football can play on you.

But before that I had to get into the Barca team. That´s not easy when you consider the wealth of talent at the club and the choice of strikers they had. I made my debut in a 2-0 win over Santander and although I didn´t score and was substituted after an hour I felt I did pretty well. Spanish football is very technical and subs are used more often to change things around than in Scotland.

I scored my first goal for Barcelona in a 2-0 win over Sevilla at the Nou Camp and it was tremendous to open my account in front of the home crowd. It is a magnificent stadium and the fans were really good to me right from the start. I wasn´t always played as much as I would have liked, but I felt I was contributing and the season seemed to be going pretty well.

In September I returned to Parkhead for that Champions League encounter with Celtic. We won 3-1 and I scored against my old club. It was a strange feeling, I was a Barcelona player then and it was my job to score, but it was still a little odd. Out of respect for the Celtic fans I didn´t celebrate the goal - they were great to me that night, as Celtic fans always have been, and I was touched that we still had a connection.

Two months later I had another nightmare moment in my career. In the big game against Real Madrid I tore the cruciate ligament in my left knee. The timing was amazing. I´d started to get some rhythm going in my game, scored the winning goal against Numancia and just a few days before I was named Sweden´s Footballer of the Year.

But I´d been badly injured before and I knew that with the right treatment and with a lot of hard work, I could play again. Barcelona were great because they extended my contract so I knew I could just concentrate on my rehabilitation and not worry about not having a team to play for at the end of it.

I was sent to Colorado where one of the world´s leading knee specialists, Dr Richard Steadman, operated on the injury. It was a difficult time, but I got loads of messages of support from fans, including Swedish supporters and Celtic fans, and that was great.

By February I was jogging and doing light training and slowly the recovery began. It´s not easy with a long term injury, but it´s all about staying positive and once you can see results it does get easier.

We were enjoying the lifestyle in Spain, the weather was great and May was a fantastic month for the club and for me. Barcelona won the La Liga title with matches to go and the bus tour through the streets of the city was amazing. I was awarded an honorary degree by Strathclyde University and before the end of the season I was able to make my comeback against Villarreal at the Nou Camp. I felt no reaction from my knee and I knew that I would be able to play at the highest level. I just wanted the next season to start straight away.

Before the summer really began I made another return to Celtic Park to play in a testimonial match for Jackie McNamara. Jackie is a true Celtic legend and to be there for him and in front of the Celtic faithful was a great way to end a season that had been full of ups and downs.