Live as soccer team in small estate (5)
I believe the answer is:
exist
'live' is the definition.
(I know that live can be written as exist)
'soccer team in small estate' is the wordplay.
'soccer team' becomes 'XI' (a football team, from Roman numerals for 11).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'small estate' becomes 'est' (I've seen this in other clues; 'small' asks for an abbreviation).
'xi' put into 'est' is 'EXIST'.
'as' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for exist that I've seen before include "Have being or continue living" , "quick!" , "Subsist" , "Survive" , "Have objective reality" .)