Hazard and the black tongue

Zidane comforts Hazard in a Champions League match.PETER POWELL / AP

If the stadiums had not had their vocal cords removed, Eden Hazard would be on the way to learning the meaning of the word runrún in the least desirable and, at the same time, most instructive way: with practice.

There is no other club in the world where expectations expire at such speed and, few, very few with the necessary patience to endure what is already beginning to seem like a clear set-up defect, a constant erre que erre ... But well : Spanish lessons, better one at a time.

When his battered ankle seemed ready for the competition, now it is a new muscle injury that will keep him off the pitch for another four weeks, which would be a full vacation for any worker, without a doubt the most populist comparison that I have may have happened.

• Hazard, between childhood sleep and frustration

• Waiting for Eden Hazard

Everything that you have been able to achieve throughout your sporting life is useless when you wear the Real Madrid shirt.

Even those who have defended it for years and achieved glory dressed in white are worth nothing, since Madridismo is an almost religious congregation that demands an almost constant renewal of vows.

This is known by members of the current squad such as Sergio Ramos, Marcelo or Benzemá, and other great legends of the club such as Casillas, Raúl or Butragueño, harassed at some point in their careers by the collective mosqueo of a stadium that first demands, then rebukes and At the end he asks: if the past were of any use in Concha Espina, the number seven would continue to be worn by Amancio Amaro Varela, not Eden Hazard.

For the Belgian, the timer has started to run in the opposite direction, like the shrimp bids in the Galician markets, which always go from more to less, and on his return he will carry such a backpack of debits that we will see how far they are willing to give him credit who spared no illusion and good wishes with his signing.

The quality of the attacker is as indisputable as his poor performance since he left the islands to land in Mordor, that black-tongued Madrid that devours anyone who does not earn the right to call himself a hero, except, of course, for Antonio Cassano .

In fact, there are not a few who have intuited in their physique the worst memories of the Italian and the face of Kaká, another illustrious victim of the weight of Viking history, that set of

legends

that are summarized in a single verb: to win.

Not even the league title won this summer - his only in theory - can hide a certain disappointment with a footballer who came to make a difference and accumulates more casualties than official matches, just the type of deficit that the merengue fans bear the worst.

Real is a club that is only comfortable in the field of certainties, even if they are not entirely positive, and this eternally bruised Hazard forces him to speculate, to fear the worst, which for that matter could well be the inability to whistle as the last soldier predestined to applause deserves.

Who was going to tell a footballer of such a category that his first challenge in Spain would consist of shutting his mouths and learning the meaning of some onomatopoeias ... Well, that's where we are: Boom!