Eden Hazard ends career: End of the last impromptu poet – Sport

Belgian Eden Hazard announced his retirement and the football bubble filled with melancholy. Because only rarely do thoughts about what could have been and then not become come to mind as much as with the former 100 million euro man, who was never able to repeat at Real Madrid what he had once shown at Chelsea: to be one of the best footballers in the world. Hazard is 32 years old, which is an age for all sorts of things – but not for saying goodbye to football. Actually.

But now he throws it aside and sees the time has come to say Basta. “Heel erg jammer,” cried the Belgian newspaper De Standaard on Wednesday, and yes, it’s a real shame: in times of collective counter-pressing tyranny, football is losing one of the last impromptu poets with her positioning drill, a talent for improvisation before the Lord. “The end of a crack that was led by Pläsier,” mourns L’Équipe.

Hazard comes from a family full of footballers (his brother Thorgan played in the Bundesliga for years) and moved to Spanish record champions Real in the summer of 2019. Even though his signing at the time cost a three-digit million transfer fee, it was clear across borders that it was money well spent in times of financial madness in football.

Because if you look at the pictures of his appearances in the Belgian national team, for which he played 126 times, and especially at Chelsea FC, you see electric dribbling that touches you. His solo against Arsenal FC in the 2016/17 season alone was an ode to fantasy that would become fundamental to his second title win with Chelsea FC. But when you think about the tragic last few years, you think you see those pictures in sepia. Because it’s been so long since Hazard shined.

It’s been so long since Eden Hazard shone on the football pitch

Nobody ever thought Eden Hazard was a world training champion. He was a competitive animal, someone who didn’t lace up his shoes to warm up but only when the referee was about to blow the whistle for a game. In Madrid, however, people were astonished when he presented himself for duty. His new, white jersey was tight, as it had been for a certain Ferenc Puskás decades before.

The legendary striker from Budapest, of course, had an excuse: he had been out of action for months because he was banned for two years after fleeing Hungary in 1956. Hazard, on the other hand? Was just on vacation. And not only had he not kept fit, but he had preferred to live on fries, hamburgers and milkshakes.

Open detailed view

At Chelsea FC, Eden Hazard’s art was still profitable. Like the FA Cup triumph in 2018.

(Photo: Team Ireland/AP)

In Madrid at the time, people noticed this with arched eyebrows, but it was not perceived as a drama. A drama became, in perspective, an injury that Hazard suffered in March 2020 in a Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain. His Belgian compatriot Thomas Meunier broke his ankle.

The doctors put a plate in him that bothered him; incorrect loading repeatedly led to subsequent injuries. Differences with the coaches, most recently with Carlo Ancelotti, did the rest. The result, summarized in numbers: Hazard only played 76 games in four years at Real Madrid, just five of them over the full distance. He scored seven goals. What a comparison to his time at Chelsea, where he scored 110 goals and assisted 92.

At least he didn’t become a poor poet: he received a gross salary of 30 million euros per season. He was also repeatedly seen in photos with great trophies: he won two Spanish championships, two Spanish Super Cups, a Champions League, a European Super Cup, a World Cup for clubs. “But he will never be able to brag about it,” wrote the Spanish sports newspaper As on Wednesday. And it hit the bitter undertone that perfectly reflected the mood in the Bernabéu Stadium when Hazard agreed to terminate his contract, which runs until 2024, at the end of last season. In the stands he was thought to be a brazen rip-off.

As early as June, it was considered likely that Hazard would resign. But he is said to have received a few more offers – and then rejected them. There was talk of Botafogo in Brazil, of Major League Soccer in the USA, of one or another club in Spain. But then it was enough. For Belgium’s national team, which is fighting with Austria on Friday in Vienna for points for qualifying for the 2024 European Championship, he has not played a major role for a long time, after years of being considered a symbolic figure of a “golden generation”. “We’ll see each other soon off the pitch,” wrote Hazard as a farewell, and the sad truth is that nothing will change compared to previous years.