It is not usual to see Charles Ancelotti think of an answer His naturalness leads him to answer the questions in the press room without delay. But when Fernando Burgos, a journalist with whom he has a good relationship, asked him before Real Madrid’s game against Liverpool about some statements by Eden Hazard in which he confirmed that he was not speaking with Ancelotti, the coach smiled and took a few seconds. before to answer. He did not want to put the Belgian in a bad place, but neither he wanted to make up an undeniable reality: he doesn’t count on him.
“He has been very honest, we don’t talk much and it’s the truth. Many times it is a question of character, you find yourself better talking with one person than with another. This is not the most important thing, for me it is that, Even though we don’t talk much and he doesn’t play, he respects me. I value this very much and I respect Hazard in the same way. If you don’t play a lot, it’s because there’s a lot of competition. In his position there is a player who is contributing a lot and it is Vinicius”. the club available”.
ridiculous numbers
The reality is that Eden Hazard does not count for Ancelotti. The Belgian has not set foot on the pitch since January 3, the day he played 67 minutes against Cacereño in the Cup. More alarming is the statistics in the League, where you have to leave until September 11, on matchday five against Mallorca, or in the Champions League, where you have not played since October 25, the night in which you played 14 minutes against Leipzig. Hazard adds 296 minutes in 7 games this season, accumulating a goal, in the Champions League at Celtic Park, and an assist, that same game on September 6 in what seemed like an exciting start to the season. Nothing is further from reality.
Hazard was a whim of Zinedine Zidane. The Frenchman recommended hiring him when he was a Lille player, before signing for Chelsea. So Zizou wasn’t even a Real Madrid coach. And the request was repeated when Zidane took charge of the team in 2016, 2017 and 2018, the years of the glorious Champions League triplet.
Florentino’s doubts
But the Belgian was not a player to Florentino Pérez’s liking, neither because of economic cost nor because of his media profile nor because of the references that came to the Bernabéu. The reports, when the whites probed his signing, spoke of a player who arrived overweight in the preseason, a lazy footballer in the physical aspect and a player who reaches his peak of form until spring appears, the key moment of the season. A genius and at the same time a bum.
On May 31, 2018, Zinedine Zidane announced his departure from Real Madrid, shocking the club. But it didn’t take long to wait because 284 days later, on March 11, 2019, Zizou returned to the Bernabéu after receiving a call from Florentino Pérez asking him to take charge of the squad again. The French agreed. but in return he received the favor by demanding the signing of a player for whom he had fought unsuccessfully in previous seasons, Eden Hazard.
On June 7, 2019, the hiring of Hazard by Madrid for the next five seasons was announced. Eden was presented on June 13 in front of 50,000 spectators at the Bernabéu stadium. The cost of the operation exceeded 100 million transfer, due to the different variables of the contract, some very affordable and others very optimistic, such as the clause that was activated if he won the Ballon d’Or. Zidane already had Hazard. Two young Brazilians arrived with him that summer, Militao (21 years old) and Rodrygo (18), a semi-unknown striker for whom the club was betting by paying 60 million, Jovic, and a French winger with whom Zizou would shield the defense, Ferland Mendy .
Hazard’s ‘resurrection’
The seasons passed and Hazard’s lack of commitment, who confirmed the suspicions and arrived overweight each preseason, added to a spate of injuries that cornered him in the locker room. It did not help that Florentino picked up the phone to call the related media and that they sold the ‘resurrection’ of the Belgian every season. “He arrives like a plane”, “his teammates hallucinate with him”, “he is the best version of Hazard”… All this could be read summer after summer, January after January…
But the truth is tenacious and the Belgian was diluted at the same speed that his progressive salary grew at Real Madrid until reaching the 23,162,880 gross euros that he earns this season. And he still has one more left. A footballer who does not cause problems in the locker room and of which group he has a good concept beyond football.
14 million per goal
He warned in the interview he gave to the Belgian media RTBF that despite not speaking with Ancelotti his intention is to fulfill the contract and stay on the contract for another year. Florentino has tried to get rid of it in the previous markets, but it is already resignedly assumed that the Belgian will comply with what was signed. The most ruinous signing in the history of Real Madrid, a whim of Zidane for which Real Madrid has paid 14.2 million euros for each of the seven goals he has scored with the white shirt. The new Messi has ended up becoming the new Bale, due to the way he is going to leave a locker room. A million dollar fiasco.
