Esteban Cambiasso has enjoyed a decorated career — top-division titles in Argentina (1), Spain (1) and Italy (5) and a UEFA Champions League triumph with Inter Milan in 2010 — so the 34-year-old Argentine has little left to prove as his impressive career winds down.
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With the above winner’s medals already in his back pocket, Cambiasso opted for a challenge of another kind when he became a free agent last summer, ending his 11-year run at Inter: a relegation battle in the Premier League.
In signing for Leicester City at the end of August, Cambiasso knew what he was in for in his first season in England. With nine games still to play, Leicester find themselves in dead last, seven points away from safety. Yet, Cambiasso still believes that Leicester can make the great escape — similar to that of Sunderland last year — and stay up.
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According to Cambiasso, doing so would bring the same sort of joyous, rewarding feeling of winning any other numerous trophies with which his career has been littered. From the BBC:“For me, it’s like another cup. When you start another season you have an objective, and this is the objective for us. For me, winning a cup or winning the league with another team is the same now as having the possibility to save Leicester in the Premier League. I understood when I signed for Leicester it’s not an easy job to stay in the Premier League.”
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I think some people think for Leicester all is finished. But I’m sure, because I watch my team-mates every day, we can save Leicester and stay in the Premier League.”
You have to love the belief of Cambiasso and the desire to keep his new team in the Premier League, when a player of his ilk could just as easily sit back and accept what seems to be an inevitable fate and the knowledge that his paycheck is arriving every two weeks, no matter the outcome.
Of their remaining nine games, Leicester still have home fixtures against Newcastle United and Queens Park Rangers, while they are away to West Bromwich Albion and Burnley. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for the Foxes, but it grows fainter and fainter with every point dropped.