Fighting for my spot is natural... I've had to work for everything in my life

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW CEDRIC SOARES | CRYSTAL PALACE v ARSENAL (8pm, Sky)

- Simon Collings

CEDRIC SOARES cannot put his finger on exactly why he has been a fighter throughout his whole career.

As a youngster, he was one of the darlings of Sporting Lisbon’s academy, “a pretty boy”, he says, but when he made the jump to the first team that changed.

“I was a pretty boy in terms of everyone already knew me in the youth team,” he tells Standard Sport.

“I was the captain of the youth national team, captain of Sporting Lisbon’s [youth team]. I was growing in this beautiful world and sometimes you need this shock.

“I came to the first team and I was 19 years old, in one season I played five or six games. It was a shock.

“I asked to go on loan, I went on loan. I fought for what I got, nobody gave me anything. I am very proud of it.”

Just like back then, the hard work is paying off for the 30-year-old rightback, as his fine form for Arsenal earned him a recall to the Portugal squad.

Cedric has excelled so much for Arsenal over the past few months that even though Takehiro Tomiyasu could be fit to face Crystal Palace tonight, the Japan international faces a fight to win his place back.