Thierry Henry invited Alexander Hleb to stay with him in his house at Barcelona after the Belarusian struggled to settle into his new surroundings.
Hleb joined up with his former Arsenal colleague at the Blaugrana after making a £12 million switch in 2008 but was initially living in a hotel to begin with.
Henry, who had made the move a year previously, saw that his teammate wasn't having the best time adapting and opened his arms out for him.
"Thierry comes to me and says, 'You've lived in hotel for a long time, come and live with me'," Hleb told The Telegraph in an in-depth interview.
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"If we had a day off friends would come round, and it was easier for me to adapt. I lived there for a few months.
"We watched Arsenal games together and talked about everything. Henry helped me a lot."
Despite Hleb winning the treble in his first season with Guardiola's Barca, he never really got going in Catalonia and later revealed in an interview with The Guardian that the biggest regret of his life was leaving Arsenal for Barcelona.
He was subsequently loaned out to former club VFB Stuttgart, Birmingham City and VFL Wolfsburg before leaving permanently for Krylia Sovetov.
In a fresh interview with The Telegraph, Hleb, now in his fifth spell with Bate Borisov, has talked about how he still rues making that move.
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"Arsenal was fantastic, the greatest time of my life," he said.
"I love the club, the coaches, my friends. Unbelievable. Everything was a dream. It's difficult to say why I left.
"Have I fulfilled my potential? No, I made a lot of mistakes.
"That's why I am not 100 per cent happy with my career. Going to Barca was a tough call, but after that everything was a mistake. I lost my best years."
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