Azpilicueta interview: Quintuple centurion on his Chelsea firsts, his rivals and his special milestone
28 JAN 2023
We continue to celebrate Cesar Azpilicueta reaching 500 games for Chelsea by talking to the man himself!
In 2011, not long before Cesar Azpilicueta moved to Chelsea, two club legends reached the 500-game milestone in the space of a few weeks of each other. To mark those special occasions, the official Chelsea website asked Frank Lampard and John Terry the same set of questions.
Now our current captain has joined them in the exclusive six-strong list that has played so many games for the club, in part one of our exclusive interview today we pose a selection of those questions to him as well while in tomorrow’s part two, we will ask him some of his own.
And to compare and contrast, you can revisit here the answers given by Lamps and JT 12 years ago
On this page however, it is Azpi’s turn…
．What is your main memory of walking through the door at Chelsea for the first time?
It was quite late in August [2012], I arrived at the training ground after having my medical and I remember I met [then manager] Roberto Di Matteo at that time, he was still in the building. I couldn't meet any players because training had been in the morning so I chatted with Roberto for a while. I was really happy to step into the building to see the amazing facilities and I was excited to come back in the morning and have my first training session with my team-mates.
I was nervous, and I spoke with Juan Mata who I knew from the Spanish national team. The first day he helped me. Fernando Torres was one of my idols when I was growing as a kid and now I was his team-mate. The dressing room was full of world-class players and they welcomed me really well.
I felt really good since the first day, I had an exciting training session and I remember the next day was a game against Newcastle at home which I was not involved in, but that could give me the chance to be already with the team.
．How do you now view your debut?
Well it took a while. I remember my first game in a Chelsea shirt was on the Academy pitch against Charlton during the international break in September, it was a friendly game. That made me realise that I needed to work my way into the first team. I knew I was not a signing where I could walk straight into the team and be a regular. I had to work on my own path.
Then I had to wait until late September and a League Cup match against Wolverhampton. I was very excited, I wanted to play and then I didn't want the game to finish because I was enjoying it, we were winning 6-0 and it was a very good debut and my first time playing at Stamford Bridge.
．Can you still replay in your mind every moment of your first goal?
Yes. I can remember. It was at Arsenal. I had been watching when we were playing that year with Jose Mourinho and we were quite dangerous from transitions, even from set-pieces. The first few months I was not involved every game so that allowed me to learn and to see what the players could do and learn from them.
There was one thing that stuck in my mind so for that moment when I scored, it was an Arsenal corner and I felt we could make a quick transition. After the Arsenal header back, I remembered to go and put my foot out in front of the goalkeeper and scored. If instead Arsenal had recovered the ball and we took a transition from them and we conceded a goal, maybe that would have been the last time I played! But sometimes you have to go with the instinct and at that moment I really enjoyed that goal. The celebration was like crazy, it was another moment of joy.
．Best advice received over the course of those 500 games?
There are so many but there's no one thing specifically where I would say that it changed or made a difference because I think it's an accumulation of little things that I've learned from different managers, people in the club, team-mates.
I think you always have to give everything, that's the way I see life. I see football as something with joy, being here training every day like if it was a game. That allows you to be ready for every single game. It's very important that approach.
I've seen players who don't train very well and then they are amazing in the games, but this is not the normal basis in football. Even though some talented players can do it, it's not the normal. The normal common thing for me is a matter of giving everything every day, being happy to be here, walk through the door and train as hard as I could, win everything I could, have the feeling that you give everything and then being ready for the next challenge.
．What is missing so far?
Always football is about the present. It's very nice to look back and see how successful we have been. When I joined the club in 2012, just after the first Champions League win, you could see how successful the club was at winning trophies so when you arrive you want to keep going, you want to feel what they felt, the other team-mates when winning trophies.
Then, once you win the first title, you want the second and I think there is never a moment when you say well that's it. When you're at Chelsea that ambition is always there. You want always the next one. Whatever trophy is in front of you, you want to grab.
．Have there been periods when as a team you have been absolutely flying, knowing you were going into a game and could not lose?
Yeah, there have been a couple of times. When we won the Premier League with Mourinho, we had a period when we were playing amazing and you feel strong - the big games, you're ready for it - and we had an amazing team.
With Antonio Conte as well when we won the Premier League, we had a long run of winning. We just couldn't concede a goal, we were so strong, we scored goals, we were a team that was very solid. We could enjoy the Champions League run as well when we won it. We felt really strong.
It is difficult to achieve that but once you achieve it as a team it is very powerful. There is the respect you gain as well from the opponents when you step on the pitch. You feel strong, you feel connected and the times we have had this feeling is amazing but you have to keep working hard every day to maintain it, it's not easy.
There are different ways, different players, different managers, different styles of play. In football there is no absolute truth of how to win. We have seen over the years that there are many ways of winning and you have to get yours and just try to maximise what you have. I've seen many managers and everyone always had this mentality of going to win every game.
．Best thing you've seen one of your Chelsea team-mates do?
I’ve been lucky to see many great individual actions but in my head is Eden’s goal at Liverpool because I was very close. I remember he passed me the ball, I passed it back and I could be in the perfect spot to follow it. His action was really good - the high speed, the quality and the finish. It depends on the position where you are, you can see it differently, but it was amazing.
．Who has felt the biggest rival over the 500 games?
The derbies always. Arsenal, Tottenham. The London derbies are something that since I arrived are special games. I remember my first one was against QPR and you have the feeling that when it is a London derby day there is always that extra special atmosphere. We want to win every game but for the fans as well. That atmosphere it can create at home and away is something different and when you win you enjoy it doubly.
．Your best goal?
I would say against Leicester. The one that was something a bit different. I really enjoyed it.
．You've passed a lot of milestones but does the 500-game one seem special?
It is special because it's the most recent one but I never looked at the games, I just kept playing, my mind always was trying to recover as quick as possible to be available for the next one. Prepare myself to have this consistency and to work on my recovery, my preparation, to try to avoid injuries and to be in the best condition to get my spot in the team.
So that was the mentality I always tried to go with. When you win trophies you want to win more but sometimes, when you sit back a bit and you know only six players in the history of Chelsea have made it, of course it's a moment that I'm really proud of. I never set any target when I arrived and to see where I am now is something that I'm really proud of, but I always want more.
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Azpilicueta interview part two - on injuries, positions, where is home and the secret to consistency
29 JAN 2023
Having yesterday answered a set of questions shared with others in the Chelsea 500-appearance club, in the second part of this exclusive interview we today ask our long-serving Spaniard some tailor-made queries…
．It's not every landmark where you get applause from your team-mates in the dressing room after a game, as happened for you at Anfield last weekend.
It was nice because it's an achievement that I made through my team-mates as well. They helped me every day to have this. This is a moment of joy because we share a lot of moments together. We have some tough moments. We have happy moments. I think that's really important to have the feeling of being together and stick together at every time.
．If you look at the other five players you have joined in the Chelsea 500 Club, it can’t be an accident that those who played the most games also earned a reputation for giving everything in training.
I think it's something that you have naturally or do not. It's difficult to teach something when you don't have this culture. I was growing up at Osasuna as a kid and I always had this approach, to every day go to training to give the maximum, training like it was a game, sometimes with bruises and kicks. That's how I grew up and that's how I felt. I had to work on my career.
When I arrived at Chelsea, I wanted to keep growing and you have to keep improving. If I see myself back in 2012, I see the improvement I had as a player and as a person. I have been over 10 years in the same place and that allows you to grow. Training and professionalism was something that I always had as my focus during the week, always to be in the best shape for training and the best shape for the game and then to recover.
I know sometimes my wife had to deal with that as well, when I was not winning and when you are a bit tired and you want to go out but you have to take care of your body. It’s also a big, big credit to her and my kids because they helped me during the journey as well.
．We heard during your early years at Chelsea that you never drunk alcohol during the season. Is that still the case?
The day I felt I could celebrate more was against West Brom when we won the league [on Friday 12 May 2017]. But we had a game on the Monday after. Normally the manager would change the whole team but I was on a run of playing every minute. I never spoke with Antonio Conte about if I wanted to play or not, I just did what I felt I had to do which was to celebrate in a moderate way and to be ready because then after, we had the FA Cup final as well.
So I contained myself. My aim was to celebrate after the FA Cup final, and he picked me for the Monday game. It was an achievement to play every minute of that league-winning season. I could not imagine it when I started the season but then when you are so close you want to do what you can from yourself to be ready for it.
．In all the time you have been at Chelsea you have only missed nine games due to injury or illness. That is quite incredible.
At Osasuna I didn't have an injury. I went to Marseille and the first injury I had was my ACL. It kept me out for nearly six months and that changed my career, because that changed my body, that changed my way of approaching every day.
When you're young and everything is going smoothly and easily, you feel everything's always going to be like that, but when you are hit like this it makes you realise. You see people in the same hospital who have infections or some other problems after the surgery. That gives you an awareness. I was spending eight or nine hours every day on rehab in Marseille. The medical staff there prepared me really well and since then I’ve had my routine. Every week the same routine before and after to be ready.
I'm not happy with last season. I missed a few games where I normally don’t miss them, but sometimes you have to deal with that.
．One other landmark you passed recently was overtaking Petr Cech’s 494 games to become Chelsea’s highest appearance maker from overseas, again no mean feat for someone who had to adapt from a different culture to settle so well here.
First of all, what can I say about Petr - the best goalkeeper in Premier League history, a Chelsea legend. What he achieved was amazing. It has never been my goal, individual awards and individual achievements. Those are part of the process, but when you arrive here and you see these kind of players and then after a few years, overtake their number of appearances, of course you enjoy it and you're proud. It gives you a moment to enjoy because it's not very easy to do.
．How much does England feel like your home now?
My kids speak better English than Spanish. My wife is Spanish but sometimes at home between them they speak in English. The TV is in English. So this is my home.
I moved to Marseille for two years then I moved here and since we arrived, we felt like this place is home as well, but it was always a consequence of having the continuity at the club, having the confidence where I felt important so I wanted to keep going and being part of this club.
．Taking it one step further, do you feel like a Londoner, with a connection to the city?
I live in Surrey which is a bit different, because of the training ground, but in London I've seen so many changes during the years and I've met a lot of people that I still have connections with. It is where I have friends and know people in the businesses and restaurants and shops, so for us it feels like home.
．If you look at the breakdown of the number of games you have played in each position, although about 40 per cent of the 500 games have been at right-back, the rest are split pretty evenly between right centre-back and left-back, with a handful of wing-back appearances.
For sure it is true I arrived as a right-back and my first year I played right-back, but then with Mourinho I played left-back. Branislav [Ivanovic] was the right-back, a top player, and left-back was Ashley Cole so it was not easy - both are among the best defenders in the Premier League, so I had to just take the opportunity when I got the one to play right-back, and make the most of it when I had to play left-back.
Mourinho gave me the confidence playing left-back and Ashley with me has been always phenomenal. That was very important to allow me not to be stressed or be in a difficult position. Of course he wanted to play but he got an injury and I got the spot for a few games and Mourinho trusted me for that position.
I will always be grateful to Ashley as well because someone like him, with his career, to have this kind of behaviour, you always appreciate that. We fought for the position in a healthy, competitive environment and then the one who gets the most from that is the team.
．One of the real successful switches was early in that 2016/17 season when you started the campaign at left-back but then went to right centre-back and the team did not look back.
It was at half-time against Arsenal when were 3-0 down when we switched the system and I was playing right wing-back. So it was more from left-back to right wing-back and then during the next week, Antonio [Conte] came to me and said I am going to play right centre-back in a back-three. I had never played there and then when we started to work on the patterns and seeing videos on the way he wanted to play, it clicked. We went on an amazing run.
．Did becoming the captain give an extra boost to your Chelsea career?
Being the captain of Chelsea has a responsibility of course and I embrace it. When I was first handed the vice-captain role in 2017 and then became captain in 2018, I’d learned from so many players, captains and vice-captains, during my career. You have seen how they manage defeat and different situations. Sometimes you might not like how but everyone is a different personality and you have to develop as a leader, as a captain, and try to improve every day.
．Over the 500 games, what has changed most?
Now the Premier League and football in general is becoming more competitive. Every club has more power and can get better players. The pace of the game is quicker and there is more data. The atmosphere always in the Premier League has been nice, even though now we have social media which sometimes can have a negative effect.
I've seen incidents that shouldn't happen, even in the stadiums. I think we are in a different society that feeds into football, but you know what, when you step up on the pitch and with the away fans, I think it is the best atmosphere in the world to play football.
．You weren’t tempted to say changes due to VAR as well?
Yeah, true. I forgot this one!
．Finally, what would you say is the main key to consistency?
Give everything every single day and focus today on what you can do today. That will take care of the rest. If you think too far ahead you can miss a bit of the present and you will never reach that far. It's better to concentrate on now.
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