£6.5 million. That was the initial fee Chelsea paid to Marseille in August 2012 for Cesar Azpilicueta.
In a summer that was dominated by the capture of a young Belgian wizard named Eden Hazard and a Brazilian star called Oscar, the full-back was deemed a bit of an afterthought.
The club shop quickly sold t-shirts proclaiming Hazard, Oscar and Juan Mata as "The Three Amigos". The gold that dominated that season's home shirt was a constant reminder of the cinematic triumph the previous May in Munich. Azpilicueta was viewed as a backup to Branislav Ivanovic, maybe one day a competent successor, but no one would have predicted he would go on to lift Chelsea's second Champions League crown and become an undisputed legend.
