{"id":14986,"date":"2026-07-07T08:07:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=14986"},"modified":"2026-07-07T08:07:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:07:28","slug":"former-chelsea-captain-azpilicueta-announces-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=14986","title":{"rendered":"Former Chelsea captain Azpilicueta announces retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_65\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Former Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta has announced his retirement from professional football.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Azpilicueta will call time on his career at the end of the current campaign, following almost 800 club appearances and 44 caps during a decade-long international career with Spain.<\/p>\n<p>The 36-year-old has endured an injury-hit campaign at Sevilla in La Liga and has now announced his retirement.<\/p>\n<p>Azpilicueta began his career at Osasuna, before catching Chelsea\u2019s eye during a two-season spell with Marseille.<\/p>\n<p>After joining the West Londoners in August 2012 for just \u00a37m, the defender spent 11 years at Stamford Bridge and made 508 appearances, a record for a non-English player.<\/p>\n<p>Affectionately nicknamed \u2018Dave\u2019 by teammates who struggled to pronounce his surname, Azpilicueta won nine trophies with the Blues, including two Premier League titles and the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>He returned to Spain with Atletico Madrid in 2023, before joining Sevilla last summer. The Spaniard has announced his retirement with a goodbye message on social media.<\/p>\n<blockquote data-service=\"twitter\" data-category=\"marketing\" data-placeholder-image=\"https:\/\/thefootballfaithful.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/complianz-gdpr-premium-DISABLED\/assets\/images\/placeholders\/twitter-minimal.jpg\" class=\"cmplz-placeholder-element twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"qme\">\u2764\ufe0f\u26bd\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zQXV79ildS\">pic.twitter.com\/zQXV79ildS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 C\u00e9sar Azpilicueta (@CesarAzpi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CesarAzpi\/status\/2057736913407144026?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0England squad revealed ahead of 2026 FIFA World Cup <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See more \u2013\u00a0Maguire \u2018shocked and gutted\u2019 after World Cup snub<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook | Instagram | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta has announced his retirement from professional football. Azpilicueta will call&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}