Two days after Real Madrid's visit in the Copa del Rey, in the Cacereño locker room, in addition to remembering the high of competing with the king of Europe, there was a conversation about something that was disconcerting to them.
They cannot overcome the astonishment of having seen Eden Hazard, who turns 32 this Saturday, wandering around the field: "He was as if unwilling," they repeated.
“He did not try anything, he barely participated.
There were others who offered themselves, but he…”.
The conversation about the Belgian was opened on the night of the game by the player from Cacereño Carmelo Mereciano, who described a lackadaisical performance: "He didn't care."
In Príncipe Felipe, the last effort of the footballer to refloat his story with Madrid seemed to vanish.
He surprised in Cáceres, but much less in the white offices.
Hazard is only the 20th player to play this season, and it's not a whim of Carlo Ancelotti.
Rather the contrary, he has always tried to promote it, even when in daily work he is seen to be a step below in intensity compared to the group.
In the club they have already attended a few of his efforts to revive his career.
The penultimate, and perhaps the one that sounded the strongest, was made public by the footballer himself at the foot of La Cibeles, while the team celebrated the 14th European Cup.
The night of May 29 of last year was already beginning to fall, and Hazard, with a paper cup in his left hand, grabbed the microphone with his right: “Look.
I have done these three years with injury, this... many things.
But next year I'm going to give it my all for you,” he assured, and his teammates crowded around him, hugged him, and jumped with him.
A celebration.
A little relief.
For three years they had seen their partner link one injury after another after the tackle in which Thomas Meunier broke his ankle in a Real Madrid-PSG game in November 2019. Three operations, a multitude of muscle tears, recoveries and linked relapses.
A very tough time for a footballer who had hardly been injured since he made his professional debut at the age of 16 with Lille in France.
The colleagues who hugged him that festive afternoon had witnessed the ordeal from the front line, and had also seen that Hazard had gone through it without apparent loss of spirit, as several sources who follow the daily work in Valdebebas often underline.
The Belgian returned from the summer with a better point of form than previous years, and without the titanium plate on his right ankle, which had become infected and was removed last March, after almost a year trying to convince the club to to let him get rid of her.
He was no longer in pain, and Ancelotti gave him half an hour in his league debut and seven minutes on matchday two.
He then he disappeared.
Until the night Karim Benzema was injured in Glasgow against Celtic on the half hour mark, and the Italian coach called on him ahead of a stunned Rodrygo, who was flying well above the Belgian at the time.
But Ancelotti, who has always tried to protect him, made another gesture in response to his status and Hazard recorded one of his best nights in a match that opened immediately, and through which he circulated freely, with defenses that looked at him from a certain angle. distance.
He even scored the final 0-3.
That helped him to start five days later as a false nine against Mallorca at the Bernabéu.
The resurrection came until minute 59, when with 1-1 he was replaced by Luka Modric.
The match ended 4-1, and the Belgian did not appear in any league game again, although he did play 57 minutes in the 1-1 against Shakhtar and 14 in the defeat against Leipzig (3-2).
His next attempt to return set him at the World Cup.
The Belgian team has often been a refuge in which he still felt important and where Roberto Martínez had a scheme in which he could contribute as a freer midfielder.
A few days before traveling to Qatar, he gave an interview to
Marca
in which he sounded determined: “I have to show everyone that I can play football.
People have doubts about what I can do, but I don't,” he said.
"I have to show when I play, whether it's five minutes, 10 or 15. I want to play and when I do I have to do it well."
The crisis with Belgium
He was convinced that he only needed minutes.
Like after winning the first match against Canada in Qatar (1-0), when he stood in the mixed zone to explain in Spanish that he knew he hadn't had a good performance, but that he was happy with the minutes played, because what needed to refine was just that: play minutes.
However, the road went awry when they lost to Morocco on the second day (0-2) and Belgium found itself in the middle of a formidable internal crisis.
L'Équipe
assured that after the defeat there had been a strong discussion in the Belgian dressing room, in which Hazard had been reproached for having said in public that their defenses were no longer as fast as in 2018. They had one last match against Croatia to try to go to the round of 16 and Courtois and Hazard saw themselves before the press trying to put out the fire, assuring that nothing had happened.
The incombustible Modric endured a 0-0 with his team and Belgium was left out in a game in which Hazard, the great captain, only played four minutes, his last with the team.
A few days after sinking his last attempt to return he announced that he would never play for Belgium again.
The next opportunity presented itself to him on Tuesday in Cáceres, where he left the memory of a surrendered and absent footballer.
He has a contract until June 2024 with Madrid, which would not hinder him if he promoted a move.
Although it will not be in this January market, as he explained before the World Cup: he and his family like Madrid.
The next window opens on June 30, but in the offices they find it difficult to make it attractive with performances like those in the Cup. There was not a single Madrid player from whom Opta registered fewer interventions than the 24 of the Belgian.
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber
