Eden Hazard, a former winger for Real Madrid, has said that playing for Los Blancos was his goal. Despite the fact that his time with the club did not go as he would have planned, the time he spent with the club will be remembered as an incredible experience.
After having a difficult time maintaining his condition during his tenure at Real Madrid, Hazard, who is now 33 years old, decided to retire from professional football at the age of 32. The narrative did not have a pleasant conclusion, despite the fact that a lot of people anticipated a lot from someone who was purchased for more than one hundred million euros.
“Being a member of Real Madrid was my ultimate goal. “I played for a beautiful club, but it did not go the way I wanted it to,” Hazard said in an interview with The Obi One Podcast.
In addition, the former forward said that he was really unfortunate during the COVID-19 epidemic, particularly due to the fact that he was had to recuperate alone at home.
When it came to Covid, I believe that I was unfortunate at that moment. The operation was scheduled to take place in Dallas, and by the time I arrived in Madrid, Covid had already arrived. In addition, I was recuperating after being confined to my house for a period of two months.
Despite the fact that he believed the routine he had devised to be sufficient for him to be match fit, he recognized that this was not the real situation.
“The exercises that I did at home were sufficient for me,” she concluded. It seemed to me that there was nothing else to do. After two months, I came to the realization that I ought to have contributed more. After I had returned to the field, I became aware of it,” he said further.
The body of Hazard completely surrendered.
When the 33-year-old player was questioned about his problems, he stated that during the 2019-20 season, when Real Madrid won the La Liga championship, he requested that his then-coach, Zinedine Zidane, make use of his talents more often.
On the other hand, once he had won the championship, he came to the realization that his body was just not backing his beliefs.
I told Zidane, “I want to help, I want to press,” since we were extremely close to winning the league championship. I said this because I wanted to contribute. After that, on the day when we were crowned winners, I decided to say, “No, I can’t do more.” I am in need of thorough rehabilitation since my body is suffering a great deal, but it was already the end of the season when I made this statement.
Hazard was subjected to a great deal of criticism for being overweight during his time at Real Madrid. While he was addressing the situation, he confessed everything, but he also remarked,
Because I believed that I had already accomplished a lot over the course of ten months, I gained four or five kg every summer. When you put your body through the most rigorous workouts, people choose to ignore you. When you have free time, you should treat it as such.
What aspects of his professional life would he alter?
However, after spending three and a half seasons at Real Madrid, Hazard was unable to even achieve a century of appearances and only managed to score seven goals throughout his time there. It was during his second season in La Liga that he managed to score the most goals, although he only managed to score three goals overall.
In response to the question of if there was anything about that period of time that he would wish to alter, Hazard said,
“If I had to select just one thing to alter, it would be to request that the physician include a physiotherapist in the treatment process. When we returned to the field, I managed to injure myself, but my ankle was never the same again, and I ended up breaking it during the whole next season. And as for the rest, you are aware of the drama.”
In spite of the challenges he faced, there were moments of brilliance that caught his attention, and the 33-year-old revealed that he felt the same way.
“However, if you take a look at my entire career, the first month of the season is the part that I thought was just the beginning. After that, beginning in September and October, I was flying because I needed time,” she said.
In October 2023, the winger made the decision to end his career as everything seemed to be going against him. He had reached a point when nothing was working for him.