When Eden Hazard signed for Real Madrid in 2018, Madridistas finally had seen a marquee signing since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo. Whilst he may not have been the goal-scorer supreme that Ronaldo is, Los Blancos had bought in a world-leading star.
A little over two years later, the script has certainly not gone how many would have expected. An injury-hit opening season saw the Belgian limited – instead offering flashes of brilliance in between long spells out. The sequel season was meant to be the comeback, Real fans would finally see it all come together. Instead, they were quickly reminded of how the sequel can never be as good as the original, in fact, it was seemingly worse.
At the time of writing, he has missed a total of 47 games for Real Madrid. In a little over two years, he has missed over double the number of games than he did at Chelsea – where he played for eight years.
On paper, Eden Hazard is an elite player. His stats throughout his career have been consistently of a high calibre; there are few players who come close to his ability on the ball. But the game isn’t played on paper, when a player costs in excess of €100 million, expectations will be monumental and need to be met.
At this point, Eden Hazard may be fighting for his future at Real Madrid
Whilst Hazard has certainly shown moments of being capable, it does not justify the outlay spent on him. He can be forgiven to a degree for his injuries, although, he shares the responsibility to fix his own problems.
The Belgian has openly stated he has had issues with his weight, turning up to preseason in states that weren’t ideal – particularly that of Real’s marquee man. Nobody is expecting him to become the obsessive Adonis that is Cristiano Ronaldo, but he is expected to keep a level of professionalism that comes with being at the biggest club in world football.
For all of his flaws, Gareth Bale absolutely repaid what he cost the club in 2013. He may have had his inconsistencies in his latter years, but few can truly take away what he contributed to in his tenure at the club, particularly in his first few seasons.
Bale came into the team and immediately set an impression and he wasn’t injury-free either. Even in his opening months at the club, he had issues. But when he featured, he was impactful.
Since joining in 2018, Real have lifted the league title and the Spanish Super Cup. In both those successes, Eden Hazard’s impact on them was completely minimal. Again, whilst that is not directly his fault, it is quickly becoming a thought at the forefront of Madrid fans’ minds: ‘What have the club paid for exactly?’
Hazard has accepted he has injury issues, with reports even surfacing that he’s looked into dealing with the psychological aspect of the recurring problem.
Whatever has gone wrong has been a mix-up of bad fortunes and some personal lack of dedication for Eden. With stories now saying he’s going to ‘repay the faith,’ he may need to consider in his mind that he could very well be playing for his future at Real Madrid.
The move he called his dream has spiralled into a nightmare, which only Hazard can fix. Can he return to the world star everyone remembers at Chelsea? Or will he languish and become a ‘what if’ signing at Real – similarly to that of Kaka?