Henrik Larsson, arguably the best foreigner ever to play in Scotland, will be 50 tomorrow but the Swedish striker will be forever young in the hearts and minds of the Celtic supporters fortunate enough to witness him in action.

While he spent the peak years of his career at Parkhead, his enduring excellence was such that, having joined Barcelona at the age of 32, he helped the Catalans claim two La Liga titles, a Super Cup and the Champions League. Then, approaching his 36th birthday, he responded to an emergency call from Sir Alex Ferguson and contributed to Manchester United’s Premier League triumph in 2007.

Yet, as Craig Burley, who joined Celtic on the same day as Larsson, points out, there were no immediate signs of a genius at work when the latter first arrived in Glasgow.

“We both signed on July 25, 1997 and, as it turned out, I’d played against Henrik at Ibrox the year before in a World Cup qualifier,” he recalled. “When I heard he was joining too I thought: ‘Well, he’s a decent old-fashioned winger’ but no more than that.

“You have to remember that the Henrik Larsson who arrived at Parkhead wasn’t the one everyone thinks of now and, like the rest of us, he had a terrible start to that season. Everyone remembers his debut at Easter Road when his misplaced pass set up Chic Charnley to score Hibs’ winner and Henrik still gets annoyed when people mention that to him: it’s like ‘Yes, but what about the other seven years?’

“But I have to stress that - in those early games and even at training – there was no indication that he was going to become the club’s talisman or be such a prolific scorer. That wasn’t obvious to any of us.

“In fact, it’s frightening to think about it now but it took the unlikely appointment of Wim Jansen as Celtic’s manager – someone who had been struggling in Japan – to rescue Henrik’s career.

“At that time Feyenoord didn’t know what they had with him and they were trying to offload him. In fact, it looked as though he might just meander back to Helsingborg, where he might never have been heard of again.

“Fortunately, though, Wim knew about the release clause in Henrik’s contract and he’d seen something in him that no-one else has. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for this but he’s the man who transformed him into the superstar he became.

“Wim knew what he wanted to make Henrik into and I’d compare what he did with him to what Arsene Wenger achieved with Thierry Henry, who had endured a terrible time in Italy as a wide player until Wenger brought him to Arsenal and turned him into the greatest front man of his generation.

“That’s what Wim did with Henrik, although it certainly didn’t happen overnight. After that defeat to Hibs we lost at home to Dunfermline and his first goal at Parkhead was an own goal in the UEFA Cup tie against Tirol Innsbruck. Gradually, though, it all began to come together.”

Larsson weighed in with 19 goals to prevent Walter Smith’s Rangers claiming a record tenth consecutive championship, with Scotland midfielder Burley contributing a creditable 13 but the former would go on to become the third-highest scorer in Celtic’s history (with 242 goals), behind only Jimmy McGrory and Bobby Lennox.

“The year before I joined from Chelsea, we had signed Gianfranco Zola - who’d been the heir apparent to Diego Maradona at Napoli - for £4.5m, which I regarded as the steal of the century,” said ESPN pundit Burley, who turns 50 on Friday. “But Celtic got Henrik for £650,000: there are average players nowadays who make that in a month,” said Burley.

“Henrik overcame his difficult start – we all did – and he was soon making an impact. The very fact that a player as talented as he was stayed with Celtic for seven years is something that just wouldn’t happen now but that was all down to him.

“The fact is that he was happy in Scotland. He liked his colleagues and he was enjoying his football. Even though Celtic were paying him well, he could have tripled his salary by moving on several occasions but money was just a sideshow for Henrik. His main concerns were ‘Am I playing well?’ and ‘Is my family happy?’ and he was and they were.

“Some players can find the adulation of supporters a bit suffocating but the more adored he was by the Celtic crowd, the better Henrik performed. He soaked up that energy and channelled it into his performances.

“He’s the most feted Celtic player of the last 40 years and deservedly so. And because, unlike some of us, he hasn’t moved into the media and had occasion to criticise the club now and again, he hasn’t given the fans any reason to change their minds about him: he’s smart that way."