James Lawton: Juventus showdown promises test of nerve for ageing warrior and boy sorcerer

'Cesc Fabregas is a pure throwback to the great midfielders of the past'

Strictly speaking Vieira and Fabregas is not - and cannot be - a one-on-one duel. In some ways that would be the equivalent of sending a corvette against a battleship of the line. But now there is an exquisite balance in the contest. Patrick Vieira, the ageing but not ancient warrior, and Cesc Fabregas, the precocious teenager, will do different things, but both of them will be utterly central to the performance of their teams.

Wenger agonised when he decided to let Vieira go to Juve; maybe he wasn't losing as much as he might have done a few years earlier, but it was still an immense gamble.

Vieira in one sense was irreplaceable: he represented power and influence that took him on to the same plateau as the Premiership's most commanding player, Roy Keane. If the years did for Keane, something else worked against the aura of Vieira. Maybe his head had been turned by Real Madrid's attention, then his spirit soured by their rejection and certainly there was a dullness of reaction from him when he was outfaced both on and off the field by a Keane reaching down for the last of his resolve at Highbury a year or so ago.

Perhaps Arsenal were cutting their losses when they sold him to Italy, and no doubt when they did that they knew that the move to Turin was likely to galvanise their old hero's spirit. So it did as Juve marched towards another scudetto. Emerson, the knowing Brazilian, provided grace notes and craft in the middle of the field, Vieira the thrust of cold steel. Wenger knew that he was probably damned if he did or he didn't, and certainly that was the case when Bolton Wanderers bullied his team to defeat and Newcastle did the same, after declaring that they had simply noted that the former aristocrats of the Premiership were suddenly there to be pushed around.

Then there was a bright light as the galacticos of Real were banished to the shadows and from somewhere Arsenal found some of their most luminous touch at a star-struck Craven Cottage last weekend. It was - apart from the renaissance of Thierry Henry's spirit and the reclamation of some his most blazing artistry - the riveting arrival at new levels of maturity, and bite, of the 18-year-old Fabregas.

Yesterday Liam Brady, the man charged with reseeding Arsenal with young players of the highest quality, felt another tug of excitement when he anticipated the new challenge facing the young man he prised away from Barcelona.

"Of course," Brady said, "there will be a tremendous spotlight on the boy when he goes against Patrick, but the idea of a head-to-head battle is not quite right. Vieira is a big midfielder, the type who came into vogue in the Nineties and heaven knows the influence and the success he had with Arsenal. But Fabregas is quite different, and not just in stature. He is a pure throwback to the great midfielders of the past; if I quoted some names a lot of the fans wouldn't remember them - Johnny Giles is one who leaps to mind.

"Really, I think Fabregas is unique at the top levels of the game now. We can talk about Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard as representing so much strength, and can look at Deco and Requelme as outstandingly skilful performers, but they don't do what Fabregas does. They don't shape a team's performance in the same way; they take more forward positions, and do not go both ways; when the ball is lost, they tend to wait to receive it. There is none of that in Fabregas.

"He is as sharp in his reading of the game off the ball as when he is on it. Maybe I'm biased, but I think we have here potentially the outstanding midfielder of his age. Seeing him play against Real you had to pinch yourself and remember that he is not yet 20. The years ahead could be very exciting for him, and our club."

Brady, an old Juve hand and a youthful, marvellously skilled star of Arsenal, is peculiarly well placed to assess the dynamics of the quarter-final match. He has never lost his respect for the subtleties of the Italian game in which he prospered with his ability to beat a man, and frequently two, and control and distribute the ball with great artistry, but he also knows the value of the freedom which has returned to Arsenal's football, and has been most intensely exploited by the young general.

"Is Fabregas ready for this test? Yes I have to say he is. Sometimes you see it happening before your eyes, the growth of confidence, and I'm sure this has happened with him over the last few weeks.

"Fashions change in football, some tactics override others, but I've never doubted that the heart of a team is in midfield; it's from there that the terms of a match can truly be dictated, and I'm excited by the fact that I believe over the next few years Fabregas is the young player who is going to remind everyone in football of this."

Some will see Brady's advocacy of a youth nurtured in the shadow of the Nou Camp as an example of the validity of the claims of the West Ham United manager Alan Pardew and the Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Gordon Taylor that in some ways Arsenal's all-foreign triumph over Real Madrid was a betrayal of the English game. Said Pardew: "I saw a headline saying Arsenal are flying the flag for Britain and I kind of wondered where that British involvement actually was when I looked at their team. We have a young team at West Ham and we are proud we have so many Englishmen."

The Arsenal response is swift and, when you consider the warmth of the crowd's reaction to their performance this week, not easy to rebut. Brady, as he did with Fabregas from Barcelona, argued for substantial investment to take the potentially brilliant Jermaine Pennant from Notts County, then watched the youngster's potential crumble through indiscipline. Francis Jeffers was bought from Everton, and also dwindled. When Theo Walcott, the most outstanding prospect produced in England since Wayne Rooney, became available, Wenger stretched the limits of his budget and paid out £12m. He could not have cared less about the details on Walcott's birth certificate. He was more interested in the quality of his play.

If Wenger has one talent beyond that of a natural-born teacher, it is the eye of a brilliant reader of the market. Anelka and Vieira and Henry soared in value under his tutelage, and now there are new assets, gilt-edged in their unfolding promise. For the moment also there is still Henry and that challenge of history.

Wenger and Capello is a beautifully drawn contest of philosophy, of art versus pragmatism, and no doubt one key is the ability of Juve to quell the current surge of Henry. His goal at the Bernabeu as much emasculated Real as beat them. It was an easy, brilliant plundering of almost insulting defence, and it is hard to anticipate him encountering such lassitude either at Highbury or the Stadio delle Alpi.

It means he has to continue to extend the work that has enchanted and at times bewildered domestic football for so long. He has to drive away the lingering notion that his greatest talent is exploiting the weak; he has to invade football history rather than merely await its final judgement.

For Vieira and Fabregas, the veteran warrior and the dazzling apprentice, there is another kind of challenge. It is to match, if not in the detail of execution but the scale of influence, another midfielder's performance. It was that of Vieira's nemesis, Keane, for Manchester United against Juve in the semi- final of the Champions' League seven years ago. Keane did it with iron and a breathtaking sense of occasion. Vieira, because of the way he plays, is obliged to emulate Keane. Fabregas has to take his own route to glory.

The ageing soldier and the boy sorcerer are separated by 10 years, but for both them and their clubs the division could be somewhat finer in the next few weeks. It could be no greater than the strength of a single heartbeat.