Former Real Madrid player Eden Hazard spoke to his former teammate at Chelsea, John Obi Mikel, in an extensive chat where the Belgian reflected on how the late part of his career unfolded due to his bad habits off the pitch.
Hazard, who was an exciting signing for Real Madrid in 2019, has admitted before that he didn’t train much in the off-season. In his latest chat with Obi Mikel, he also admitted his love for beer, even during the season.
“Every summer I gained four or five kilos because I thought I had already given a lot for 10 months,” Hazard said. “You push your body to the maximum level and people kick you. So your free time is your free time. As a Belgian, I love beers because my country has the best beers in the world. I’m not telling you that I used to drink every day, because that’s not true, but sometimes after a good game, one or two is good,”
Hazard went on to say that his off-season is his own personal time where he should not be expected to train.
“Don’t ask me to do anything (in the summer),” Hazard said. “I like being with my family, going to the beach… Don’t ask me to run in those three or four weeks. I can play football on the beach with my kids, no problem, but don’t ask me to run.”
Hazard also reflected on 2019, when he started slow due to being overweight, then eventually getting better before everything broke down after the tackle from Thomas Meunier against PSG.
“The first month of the season is the part in which I thought it was just the beginning, and then, from September and October, I was flying, because I needed time to to put my body and my mind in the best shape,” Hazard explained. “So yes, it’s true, I came back from vacation with five kilos extra, I knew it.”
“I think I was unlucky at that stage with Covid,” Hazard said about the time he spent recovering from the Meunier tackle. “I went to Dallas to have surgery and when I came to Madrid, Covid was already there. In two months of confinement, alone at home, I was recovering. If I had to choose to change just one one thing, it’s to have asked the doctor to bring a physio. When we returned to the field, I hurt myself, but my ankle was no longer the same and I broke it for the entire season. The rest, you know the story.
“I did exercises at home and for me, it was enough. I didn’t think I had to do more. After two months I realized that I should have done more. When I returned to the field, I noticed it… And we were this close to being champions, so I told Zidane ‘I want to help, I want to push’, and then the day we became champions I said: ‘No, I can’t do more, I’m finished. My body is suffering a lot, so I need to do proper rehabilitation’, but it was already the end of the season.”
