Eden Hazard officially retires from Football

Hazard lit up the Premier League for years, but where did it all go wrong for the Belgian?

Robbie Caulfield
21st October 2023
Image: Wikimedia Commons
International footballer Eden Hazard has announced his official retirement from the sport this week. After a 16-year professional career, many football fans across the globe will consider Hazard’s retirement the loss of one of football’s true greats.

The Belgian international kicked off his professional career in France, racking up a respectable 50 goals and 53 assists in 194 appearances at LOSC Lille. As a young man, Hazard’s exceptional speed and agility made him the standout player in Lille’s side, even whilst playing alongside reputable names such as France’s Dimitri Payet & Lucas Digne, and England’s Joe Cole.

It was in Hazard’s last two seasons in France that he really started to attract interest from clubs abroad. In the 2010/11 season, his 7 goals and 11 assists in 38 Ligue 1 appearances helped Lille towards their first league title since 1954 in a league and cup double winning campaign. The following year, with an impressive 20 goals and 18 assists across 38 league games, and multiple stellar performances, the Belgian spearheaded Lille to 3rd place and three successive Champions League qualifications. Hazard won player of the year in both seasons.

Attracting the likes of Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea in the winter, Hazard announced his desire to leave the club in October 2011 to take his career to the next level. On the final day of the season, still hungover from the night before, and with Lille guaranteed a 3rd place finish, Eden Hazard scored a 25-minute hattrick to mark his farewell to the Lille faithful. 6 days later, he had announced his signing with Chelsea.

Hazard’s time at Chelsea is where he became renowned as an international superstar. In an illustrious 7-year tenure, his superior dribbling ability and close control terrorised defences up and down the country. In 352 professional appearances for the Blues, Hazard scored 110 goals and provided 92 assists. Most memorable were the Belgian’s goals against Liverpool, Arsenal and West Ham, in which he showcased just how unplayable he was on his day. Arguably his most famous goal came versus Tottenham Hotspur, when Hazard denied Spurs the Premier League title late on, thus handing it to Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City rulebreakers. Hazard’s trophy cabinet consisted of 1 English League Cup, 1 FA Cup, 2 Europa Leagues and 2 Premier Leagues. On a personal level, he also won 1 Chelsea Player of the Year, 3 Best Young Premier League Player, and 1 PFA Player of the Year.

In 2019, on the back of a 4-1 Europa League final win against Arsenal, Hazard got what looked to be his dream move to Los Blancos, Real Madrid. But things did not go according to plan for the superstar winger at the Bernabeu. Hazard made just 76 appearances across 4 seasons in Spain, totalling an underwhelming 7 goals and 12 assists for the club. But where did it go wrong for Eden Hazard?

Firstly, Hazard was plagued by injuries during his time in Madrid, something unusual previously in his career. In just 4 years, Hazard racked up 18 different injuries, putting him out for a total of 95 league appearances. At the age of 30, it seemed as though Hazard’s body would no longer tolerate his high-intensity high-impact style of football.

Also, Hazard was labelled “lazy” by former colleague John Obi Mikel and former boss Jose Mourinho, both of whom claimed that he was a “terrible trainer.” Former Chelsea goalkeeper Marcin Bulka also expressed Hazard’s love for food, stating “I saw him all the time in Pizzerias.” Whilst at Madrid, the Belgian did come under fire from the press for allegedly putting on weight and looking unfit. It must be said, his displays on the pitch in Madrid did nothing to put these allegations to bed.

Even when he was fit, Hazard did not often make it into the starting 11 under boss Zinedine Zidane. We saw a similar situation with Zidane and Gareth Bale; as soon as the Welshman was suspected of a bad attitude, he fell majorly out of favour with the World Cup and Champions League winner. With that in mind, it may not have been the golden combination of a disciplined manager in Zinedine Zidane and a player who did not train well in Eden Hazard.

It appears that a combination of bad luck and bad attitude was the main catalyst for Hazard’s failure in Spain. What could have been a career laden with trophies won almost singlehandedly by the Belgian became the very opposite, with Hazard a mostly peripheral figure in Madrid’s successes during his residence. From 20 goal seasons in France, to cup finals in London taken by the scruff of the neck, Eden Hazard ultimately became an unused sub in Madrid’s 2022 Champions League final victory against Liverpool, which could have been the greatest achievement of his professional career.

Regardless of his later years, many football fans from around the world will look back affectionately at the illustrious career of Eden Hazard, the man who could shift his body around 5, 6, or 7 players without breaking a sweat. A true Premier League great, and an icon of world football.

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