Eden Hazard - The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Eden Michael Walter Hazard was born in La Louvière, Belgium. The son of two footballers, his father spent most of his career at semi-professional level with La Louvière in the Belgian Second Division, playing mainly as a defensive midfielder. His mother, a striker in the Belgian Women's First Division, stopped playing when she was three months pregnant with Eden.
Hazard was always one to be considered naturally gifted. Since the day he first played for a club at just four years old, onlookers knew they were seeing something special blossom.
In 2005, the player’s hunt for professional training took him to Lille, France. In two years, he had his first contract and made his debut for the first team aged just 16. A special chapter in his career thus began, one in which he would go on to make 147 appearances, and make his debut for the Belgian National Team at just 17 years of age.
Want some evidence of just how good Eden Hazard was at Lille?
Up until the day before this article was published (11/03/2023) Hazard was the highest scoring player for Lille since the early 80s. He was placed 2nd All-Time in their scoring charts. That was until Jonathan David skirted past him yesterday. David is now 23.
Hazard scored all those goals (50) between the ages of 17-21.
In June 2012 the winger moved to Chelsea, a club in which he would go on to rewrite history. Many call him the most individually skilful player to have ever donned the royal blue colours of the London club. He certainly ranks up there.
Was there evidence of what was to come for him in the future at his time with Chelsea? Possibly.
John Obi-Mikel described him as “The laziest footballer I’ve ever played with”.
“He would barely move in training. He’d just stand there and expect the ball to be given to him. But on matchday? Nobody could touch him”
Whatever happened in training, Eden Hazard was a star in the Premier League. In his seven years at Chelsea, he took the club to the Premier League title twice. Chelsea had won the Champions League a few months before he arrived, but a repitition of this success proved too steep a challenge during his time there, though he did manage to win the UEFA Europa League twice in addition to two domestic cups.
To this day, the club’s website describes Hazard as a ‘shining star with special skill, speed and a smile.‘
When Real Madrid come calling, very few players even have the mind to think twice about the offer. Los Blancos‘ call is said to be a train that passes only once, and it would be devastating for any individual to miss out on the opportunity having been presented with it.
At the end of an elongated transfer saga, the Belgian International announced his departure from Chelsea to Real Madrid in the summer of 2019. The move was for a fee of €100 million, one that could increase to €146 million if certain goals were met.
The signs were troubling from the get-go. Hazard had arrived at his first Real Madrid training camp unfit, overweight and with that, unsurprisingly sluggish. He stood defiant in the media in order to defend himself, but it was clear that he already could not handle the spotlight.
A lack of fitness delayed his debut for the club by two months. Understandably fazed by his new environment and a new system, it took the forward close to a month to record his first goal and assist which came against Granada at the Santiago Bernabeu.
From there on began a chain of vicious injuries and setbacks that took a toll on his career. Hazard was at the receiving end of a rough challenge in a clash against PSG that ruled him out of action for 15 games. The hairline fracture soon was resolved, but he was again forced to spend 76 days on the sideline for a fissure on his Fibula.
The 2020-21 season for Hazard was perhaps the worst any sportsperson could go through. A combination of muscular setbacks and COVID saw him miss a combined 174 days of action and reduced his presence in the squad to a mere formality.
Two years into his Real Madrid career, the Belgian had taken no quantifiable steps towards establishing himself at the club. And things hardly improved for him in his third season at the club, even as Los Blancos won the La Liga and the Champions League under Carlo Ancelotti.
“These have been three difficult years but next year I will give everything for you guys. I’m sure that next year will be mine, I’ve no doubts,” he said emotionally in an interview after being carried to a Champions League win without really contributing.
Yet, with half of this season past him, Hazard has only featured 102 minutes on the field in La Liga.
The most embarrassing development recent development for him came early in February. An out-of-the-blue statement from the club revealed that Hazard suffered from patellar tendinosis in his left knee, all while he had not participated in the team’s last six games.
This latest injury forces one to ponder – Is there any way back for Eden Hazard? Likely not.
Elite athletes are getting older. We know that players can give their best performance levels for longer now than they could a few decades ago. Training has become more sophisticated, players take better care of themselves and science has helped to understand what we must do to make fewer mistakes.
In tennis, for example, the average age of the top 100 male players in the last decade has gone from 26.2 to an all-time high of 27.9 years old. In football, the average age of the players who took part in the Champions League between the 1992-1993 and 2017-2018 seasons, has increased by 1.6 years. Going from 24.9 in the first season analysed to 26.5 in the last one.
There have been no major studies though on the effect that playing consistent professional football from a very young age has on the body over time. We can only use the eye test there, and using that eye test, there’s been plenty of examples like Hazard.
Andriy Shevchenko started his professional career at 16 and was swift as a hurricane during his peak, yet when he moved from AC Milan to Chelsea, he became a mere mortal, as did Kaká when he also left AC Milan to join Real Madrid, as did Fernando Torres when signed by Chelsea. Our most recent examples are probably Wayne Rooney and Alexis Sánchez, who were been reduced to exhausted husks of their former selves once they reached their late 20s/early 30s. The minutes that all of these players have played early in their careers had clearly come back to haunt them.
That there is a special category of technically sublime footballers whose attacking threat was largely based upon their explosiveness and who, once they lost that attribute, became tragically unrecognizable, and it looks like Eden Hazard has joined them. Little did the world know that the Belgian’s peak years were the ones seen as his stepping stones to greatness.
Football is a game of mental fortitude as much as it is of physical nuance. Hazard lived his days as the best, amongst the best and against the best in England. Moving on to Madrid was maybe a step too far for his body to take.
It wasn’t helped by him showing up unfit to training camp for his first season — and the fault for that should be placed on him — but equally, the amount of serious and unlucky injuries he’s faced have taken their toll on more than just his body.
With two more years on his clock since he made that comment, and a plethora of extra injuries in his bag, it would be laughable to expect him to be in a position of mental strength. For all the resilience the winger has shown over the years, at a certain point your mind just isn’t going to be able to take it anymore.
The hope for Hazard to return to his best will live on. The dream that one day, the former wing-wizard will run through the opposition defence with his signature cutbacks and shimmies of the foot is one that will never leave the minds of his fans.
What seems clear at this point is that Hazard’s days as a Galactico are numbered. The 32-year-old will enter the final year of his contract in the summer and will most certainly be offloaded by Real Madrid as soon as they get the chance.
It will be a time for Hazard to get back to basics, away from the constant noise and flashing cameras. A comeback from such a physical, mental and emotional rock-bottom would be difficult though, even by way of the purest of miracles.
I've mentioned before in my piece about Antoine Griezmann’s rebirth that, while it is hard to feel sorry for someone earning hundreds of thousands of pounds per week for playing this game we all love, once you strip that all away and look specifically at the human being that’s involved here, and one can’t help but get emotional. In a recent interview with Marca, Hazard said of his potential return:
His time is likely up this summer in Madrid.
Wherever Eden lands next, I hope he takes the time to focus on himself and his family above everything else. Football careers are fleeting. Very few ever reach the level that Hazard once did. He hung his boots up for his national team after the World Cup this season, and I hope once he does so for the long haul, whenever that may be, that he gets his flowers as the once truly unstoppable player that he was.