Of all the beguiling moments Cesc Fabregas was responsible for on Tuesday, perhaps as poignant and telling as any was his last. The journey home for Arsenal's established stars features drives in cars with blacked-out windows to wives and girlfriends in expensive houses. For Fabregas, it was a short trip to another part of north London to his digs and an Irish landlady.

One can imagine her greeting mixing pride and maternal concern, because it is worth repeating: Cesc Fabregas is only 18.

It is a precious age, and Thierry Henry was correct to warn us off spoiling Fabregas. Asked if the teenage Catalan, yet to win a cap for Spain, could go on to become the best midfielder in the world, the Frenchman replied: "Now you are going too far. You just have to let the guy grow up. He is doing extremely well - let him get on with it."

Journalistic excitement was justifiable, however. Up against Patrick Vieira, a World Cup winner, a serial Premiership winner and complete player (not forgetting Emerson, who will feature for Brazil in Germany this summer) Fabregas played like a world beater.

In almost everything he did, the goal he scored, the pass to Henry for Arsenal's second, Fabregas showed that vision and composure can compensate for physical immaturity. Fabregas is 11 years younger and half-a-foot shorter than Vieira, but there is no doubting which midfielder Juventus wish they had on their books this morning.

There was also another quality Fabregas displayed, one that great players through the ages have required: sheer hard work. Arsene Wenger had commented previously, admiringly, on Fabregas's appetite for endeavour, and there was tenacity and bite on show at Highbury, perhaps born from growing up in Barcelona on concrete pitches.

How Wenger lured Fabregas from Barcelona is no mystery: Wenger promised a fast track into the first team and Barca could offer no such guarantee. But the Catalan club must be near stupefied that they allowed it to happen. Just as Milan were after Vieira left them and came good at Arsenal, just as Juve must be after failing to understand Henry's ability and his subsequent relocation to Highbury.

To bracket Fabregas in that company is to risk Henry's wrath. But even in his reticence Henry could not hold back praise.

"He is amazing," the Frenchman said of Fabregas. "You don't have a lot of players like that at his age. You have Wayne Rooney, you have Patrick Vieira when he was young, and some other people, like Ronaldinho, when they were young. But there have not been a lot of people like that. I hope for him he is going to have the same career."

Global prominence came early: shortly after his 16th birthday Fabregas was player of the tournament at the under-17 World Championship in Finland.

Soon he went to Arsenal, where he broke Jermaine Pennant's record as the club's youngest player and the goal that quickly followed meant that Stewart Robson's record as Arsenal's youngest scorer also became Fabregas'.

But it has not always been easy. Fabregas has struggled at times in the Premiership and was an emotional central figure in the famous pizza row in the tunnel at Old Trafford. But he is growing physically and, as he revealed against Juventus, mentally.

"I've always had faith in Cesc," Henry said, "but at the beginning of the season he wasn't playing that well and people were having a go at him. That's the way it is. Suddenly you play well and people say he is a genius.

"If in a year's time he doesn't play well, people will say 'what happened?' He is going to have to cope with that now, although he's already shown he can.

"You have some players who, if you have a go at them, they have a strop, but Cesc can handle it. I said to so many people when I talk about Cesc, he is old in his head already. You can see it from the way he plays."

That nod to Fabregas' maturity was a reminder of another Wenger remark: "I admire his intelligence. You know when you play football it can look very complicated, but the best sign of an intelligent player is making it look simple."

Making it look simple in League Cup ties or occasional cameos as a substitute in the Premiership is one thing. Fabregas made it look simple, and beautiful, in the heat of a European Cup quarter-final.