Spending a prolonged period with one team generally means three things.
One, the player loves the club, the city, the fans - the whole set-up.
Two, the club's hierarchy, the various men at the helm, respect said player and value his continued contribution to the cause.
And three, the fans have taken that individual to their hearts, and kept him there.
Not many professional footballers can boast 10 years' service at one club in this era.
One in Swansea City's ranks can.
Angel Rangel joined Swansea a decade ago today.
Unheralded, unheard of even, the right-back moved to South Wales from Spain for the princely sum of £10,000 - part of which he paid himself.
What has followed over the past 10 years has been the dictionary definition of dedication.
Roberto Martinez brought Rangel to SA1 from Terrassa as a 24-year-old who had already turned out for five lower-league clubs in his homeland.
The man Rangel called 'El Gaffer' also signed Ferrie Bodde, Jason Scotland, Dorus de Vries, Andrea Orlandi and Guillem Bauza that summer - pretty much the spine of the side that laid the foundations for Swansea's two quick-fire promotions.
A total of 327 appearances later and it is the defender who outlived them all in Landore.
After his debut season in League One, in which he played 43 times for his new club, he returned to Spain that summer to help out in his mother's supermarket after she had suffered a stroke.
That gives you an indication of the sort of man Swansea signed.
Over the course of the next four campaigns Rangel helped steer the club to the promised land of the Premier League, even picking up a few goals along the way.
The number of appearances he has made every season has slowly decreased in recent years, with injury curtailing him to just 18 games during the last campaign.
Unfortunately, inevitably, age is catching up with the Spaniard, but not before he scored one of Swansea's most important goals last season.
Not that any of his team-mates believed it was him following his late winner at Selhurst Park.
“All the lads in the changing room have said they thought it was Gylfi Sigurdsson rather than me!" he said .
“I made that run before and I saw they had played me onside, so I tried again and Leroy (Fer) just played a perfect ball.
“It could not have been any better. I chested it down and I knew I had to volley it with the defenders around me so I hit it and it went in.
“I don’t score many but I have had some good ones, my last one against Wigan was a good one, and I remember scoring a volley against Doncaster in the last minute. But I don’t think there has been one as important as this.
“If you do not gamble you do not get the rewards. So I am delighted personally but it is great for everyone connected with Swansea.”
Typical of Rangel, that. It is never about him.
He was so delighted for everyone connected with Swansea because he is of this city now.
Although born in Spain he seems more a son of SA1 these days.
His wife is Welsh and his three children were all born here.
"I feel Welsh", he has said in the past, and Swansea is the club of his heart.
Much was made, quite rightly, about Leon Britton's influence off the pitch as well as on it during the business end of last season; with Swansea scrapping for their lives, Britton handed out DVDs about the club's journey to the players and organised team dinners to help squad togetherness.
We can speak of Rangel's off-field actions in similarly glowing terms.
During the Michael Laudrup era, when an influx of Spanish players arrived at the Liberty, Rangel was often used as a translator, a first port of pastoral call if you will, to help his fellow countrymen settle into life in their new surroundings.
Then there was his Christmas goodwill gesture to the city's homeless in 2012.
The defender and his wife had been in a coffee shop and discovered the food stock would be thrown out at the end of the day.
"It wasn't as big as some people were saying," Rangel told the Guardian in 2013 .
"I just gave a few sandwiches to a charity home. I wasn't driving around Swansea with a truck full of sandwiches.
"It was just a little gesture. Nothing else. I'm sure there are so many people that do it and they don't get what they deserve, especially those who work 24/7 in the charity homes and help the homeless people.
"No one talks about them. OK, I'm a footballer and I've done it and it's been in the spotlight but, at the end of the day, I'm a normal person, like everyone."
He's not a normal Premier League footballer, however. You don't see top-flight footballers do that often, if at all.
Then there is his helpfulness.
Many an occasion would arise in the South Wales Evening Post office when our football correspondent, long since moved on to pastures new, would quip: "Thank God for Rangel."
The 34-year-old would always stop to talk in mixed zones, regardless of result, offering honest opinions on events which had just unfolded.
There have been calls to make sure that fellow veteran Britton is kept at Swansea beyond his playing years in a coaching role.
Agreed, that is crucial.
But one could suggest retaining Rangel in some capacity is also of equal importance.
There could be no greater representative or ambassador for the club - a man who projects humility and a touch of class, character traits you don't see too much of in football in the modern era.
Martinez went to Spain to sign a striker, but came back with something more important.
A decent defender, and an even better man.
