HAIL CESAR
Dedicated, tireless & versatile... Azpilicueta is turning into any manager’s dream player and an unsung future legend at Chelsea
JOSE MOURINHO once claimed a team of 11 Cesar Azpilicuetas could win the Champions League.
His current Chelsea boss, Antonio Conte, is just as big a fan. Earlier this season, Conte hailed Azpilicueta as a future Blues legend and it is no surprise he is so popular as he must be a manager’s dream.
Consistent, always available, versatile, low maintenance, determined to improve and a winner. He is also rated as Chelsea’s hardest-working player by team-mates, another quality that will guarantee him a place in Conte’s good books.
While most of the plaudits for the table-topping west Londoners’ transformation this season have gone elsewhere, Azpilicueta has been one of the unsung heroes.
The Spain star has also been the only player to feature in every game this season. Azpilicueta said: “I work on my fitness and take care of myself and am happy to be available for the manager in every game.
“I always learnt that to play well you have to train hard so, every time I go on the training pitch, I try to give my best and to improve.
“Since I was a kid, even in school I gave my best, playing with my friends, 100 per cent sweating, fighting.
“When I was playing any game, even video games, I wanted to win. Now in training, every single exercise I want to win, beat the other players.
“It is something natural and the day I do not have this will be difficult.
“Sometimes, on holiday for a few days, I would rest but I couldn’t sit for long. I had to go to the gym to run. To get myself fit. I need to do something.
“Sometimes my wife would get annoyed and say, ‘Come on, we are on holidays’, but she knows what I am like.”
Azpilicueta’s versatility is another quality from his childhood that has served him well at Chelsea (with Mourinho and Conte below).
“When I was a kid I was a striker, then I started to be a winger and defender sometimes,” said Azpilicueta, who has played right-back, leftback and now centre-back for the Blues. “In the Osasuna academy I played as a striker and even as a central midfielder or right-back. “I never complained about my position. I am ready for whatever position the manager wants.” Conte will also no doubt like Azpilicueta’s response to being tipped to become a Blues great. “I’m pleased for those words but to become a Chelsea legend you have to win trophies,” he added. “I have won the Premier League, Europa League and League Cup – I don’t know how many it would take, but some players have won Champions League and other trophies, and you want to get up there with them. At the moment it is going well.
“But we want more and we are working on that. Now we are in a good position for the final sprint.”
And Azpilicueta knows a thing or two about what it takes to win one of those.