While Eden Hazard had an incredible career, reaching the heights of the game, he is simultaneously branded as the worst signing in Real Madrid history by some. Their most expensive until the arrival of Jude Bellingham, costing €120.8m from Chelsea, the now retired forward never managed to settle in the Spanish capital, dealing with recurring injuries.
His time at Chelsea is littered with stories from his teammates about his lack of commitment in training, for which he was generally given a free pass while he was slicing open opposition defences in the Premier League.
It is an approach that was with him even as a teenager though. Former Barcelona scout Bojan Krkic, father of the forward who played for Barcelona in the late 2000s, has told Cadena SER (via Sport) that he did not instruct Barcelona to pursue him because of it.
“I met him at the U17 European Championship, where my son was playing. Belgium reached the final, but Spain won; Hazard played wonderfully throughout the tournament, except the final. Then, he signed for Lille. I went to see him against Montpellier. It was August and in the warm-up there was a player missing, everyone was wearing short sleeves and Hazard came out in a tracksuit. The team was all together to warm up, he was stretching, he was looking at the stands. He played well, but in terms of dedication and attitude, I didn’t like it.”
Iñigo Martínez is on track to extend his Barcelona contract after playing 15 of 16 matches this season. With a clause to renew automatically after 60% of games, he's well on his way. @jordicardero
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An attitude he saw repeated again.
“I went to see him three days later against Angers. He was on the bench, like other starters. Everyone was warming up and he was walking. The physical trainer told them to stretch and he was watching the game. I put ‘discarded’ in the report. These types of footballers, who are very good, have shown me that they have not given results; both when they were my teammates and when I was a Barca scout. My report was: maximum quality, technically and tactically; but due to attitude and personality, with more details, I ruled him out,” explained Krkic.
There are those that believe that had Hazard shown more dedication to the game, he might not have suffered from injury issues so much while at Real Madrid. Equally, had Barcelona signed the Lille and Chelsea version of Hazard, particularly for the sums that they did, then the Catalan giants would no doubt have been delighted to have him.
