Cesar Azpilicueta reveals why he snubbed Barcelona for Chelsea

Azpilicueta has become a Chelsea legend over the last several years. The Spaniard has featured on 474 occasions for the Blues since his arrival from Marseille back in 2012.

During his decade-long stint with the club, Azpilicueta has won every major trophy available, with Chelsea’s Club World Cup triumph earlier this year the final piece of silverware the defender needed to complete his collection.

However, at the end of 2021/22, with Azpilicueta having won everything he can with the Blues, there was an expectation that the 32-year-old was set to return to his home country with FC Barcelona.

Barcelona have already caused Chelsea issues in the market this summer, snapping up Raphinha and Jules Kounde from under their noses. And losing their captain to La Blaugrana is unlikely to have strengthened that relationship.

But Azpilicueta is no longer Barca-bound after signing a two-year contract with Chelsea last week to keep him in west London until 2024.

Now, the defender has opened up on why he chose to snub Barcelona and pen fresh terms with Chelsea:

“Yes, the conversations were there [with Barcelona], all around the club,” Azpilicueta said, after he helped Chelsea to a 1-0 win at Everton on Saturday. “After the Club World Cup, where I became the only player to ever win every trophy, [I felt] it was the time to go back to Spain. But then everything happened with this club.

“I wanted to stay committed. I never did anything against my club. We had private conversations where I said everything. “I have never been in a transfer market situation in 10 years. It was different. The last time was Marseille and this time the contract situation made it different because I had this clause [to extend my deal] after a number of games.

“For a period I was a free agent and who knows what could have happened then? I decided to stay silent because there was already enough noise around me. I didn’t want to make it worse because I wanted to stay focused on my game.”

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