After an indifferent debut season with Town, Barnard has established himself as first choice leftback and now a key member of Mark Hughes' Wales team.
Barnard played in the 0-0 first leg tie in Russia on Saturday and is likely to start the return leg in Cardiff on Wednesday.
The ex-Bristol City player has found himself the centre of the media attention, with him only playing for little Grimsby and that.
Speaking to The Times, Barnard spoke of rise to 'fame' and troubles in the last 18 or so months
"I’d been released by Barnsley," he told the newspaper."I left them at the end of April (2002) and I was sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring, but it was just when all the clubs were coming to terms with the ITV Digital collapse and there was no money in the lower divisions. There were something like 500 players who were out of contract that summer and only 200 got jobs. I was one of the lucky ones, but I didn’ t sign for Grimsby until August 5.
"It was a very difficult time. Part of me was thinking: 'This shouldn’t be happening to me. I'm an international footballer.' But it does. And because I wasn’t with a club, I had to do pre-season training on my own. I live close to the Pennines, so I was out there running for an hour every day. That gave me time to reflect and the main thing on my mind was: 'What if I don’t find another club?'
"I had a wife and two very young children to support. I thought about going back to college and getting a degree. In what, I didn’t know. If Grimsby hadn’t offered me a contract when they did, I don’t know what I’d have done."