Real Madrid: The three worst signings of the Zinedine Zidane era

Eden Hazard

Eden Hazard was Zinedine Zidane’s dream signing since his Lille days. the Frenchman has always had a great impression of the Belgian, and his dream finally became true in the summer of 2019, as Eden Hazard was signed by Real Madrid for a fee of 115 million euros. The former Chelsea winger became the costliest signing in the history of Real Madrid, and given his reputation of being a top-5 player in the world in 2019, the expectations were sky-high.

But in Hazard’s case, everything went wrong from the pre-season itself. Eden Hazard joined the pre-season camp as an overweight player, and it sent shockwaves around the Spanish Media because his Real Madrid career didn’t even begin by then and there were already some questions being raised regarding his commitment to Real Madrid and football, in general.

He looked good in the pre-season despite being overweight, but then he had a thigh injury which delayed his official debut for Real Madrid. He came back in September and started running the show in October. Everyone knew about his quality, and they got to see the actual quality of Hazard between the PSG game in November.

But since the injury he suffered against PSG, everything changed. That was the beginning of his downfall, as what followed that game are just injuries, injuries and injuries. He was finally looking to be the player who could make a difference for Real Madrid in the attack, but the injury came as a stumbling block.

He had a relapse of the same ankle injury in February, in his second game after his comeback from injury. The ankle condition worsened with time, and it didn’t allow him to play continuously. Frequent muscle injuries followed in the second season, which had a notable effect on his gameplay, and affected him psychologically as well. One positive is that he has still looked good in some games, despite the visible decline. So there’s some hope of seeing him do well again, but these injuries aren’t helping his case at all.

Eden Hazard’s case is an unfortunate one. I don’t know if we should criticise Hazard’s commitment towards the sport or his dedication towards fitness, or Real Madrid’s medical team who haven’t been able to prevent relapses, or if we have to blame Hazard’s bad luck here. But one thing is for sure. Eden Hazard has been the biggest flop under Zinedine Zidane and looking at the way things are going, it’s very difficult to see him turning around his Real Madrid career.