Totally Extra: Edenism - the art of enjoying Hazard

0:00The Athletic FC

0:31Totally Extra. It's all the stuff

0:41Unbelievable, unbelievable Thursday the 13th of November as we record for you, listener a brand new Totally Extra Thank you so much for giving it a listen We've got Duncan Alexander in it Hi, James Hi, Duncan Michael Cox is here too Hi, James All right, Michael Hello And brimming with Brio Matt Davis-Adams all the way from his office. Yeah, that's about right. Get ready for some serious fawning on my part, I'm afraid, James. Well, no, that's what we're very much here for. Eden Hazard, first reaction, what, he's retro already. But yes, even though he only hung up his boots a few seasons back, he's already been inducted just a few weeks ago into the Premier League Hall of Fame.

1:23Duncan, it was actually you who wanted to do this particular theme. Yeah. I think Eden Hazard is the sort of Venn diagram of everything I like. He's good at football. Belgium. I enjoy that. I love Belgium. He likes his cycling. He's been at Mont Ventoux. He's a fan. Has he been on Mont Ventoux? He's a big post-football career cyclist, yeah. All right. Friends with the 1T Gobert team. Whereas they're not that good kit, but anyway. and then he's kind of like that weird period between the end of the Ferguson era and the sort of the era we're in now he was the sort of shining light and even the sort of early data sort of I remember when I worked at Opta he was one of the the first kind of data signings in a sense that we worked with Chelsea then and they had been tracking him in France for for quite a long time and the data kind of analysis was was fairly rudimentary in those days but he just shone in in many ways.

2:22And yet in some ways he's very much not that sort of player as well. He's a very instinctive... I don't know, he's obviously recently been inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame and rightly so. But I think he's, as you said in the intro, I think he's beloved from anyone who enjoys football, not just Chelsea fans, which isn't that common for Chelsea players. Very uncommon. Is he in the Michael Cox Hall of Fame, Michael Cox? Yeah, I loved him. I think he was a brilliant player. Probably the best player in the league in three different seasons for me. Definitely 2014-15. I think probably 2016-17 when Chelsea won the league again and even his last season 2018-19 there probably wasn't a real one outstanding player that season but I thought even though Chelsea weren't quite on it I thought he was he was fantastic yeah he was brilliant to watch I think in a way quite specific to the Premier League don't think he really did it in the Champions League that much so I think he's probably he's not rated as highly elsewhere as he is in the Premier League or as he is in England but yeah I do miss him actually I missed him when he went to Real Madrid not that many players I really miss from the Premier League but him and Firmino would be the two I was like really sorry to see them go Matt you had the pleasure of working with him there at Chelsea and in Duncan's emotional Venn diagram there I'd say a big slice of it was the fact his whole kind of attitude to the game his whole approach to life in general is that something that you miss?

3:45Yeah absolutely I mean insanely talented footballer but somebody who just wore it really well in a way that I've not really seen from anybody else. A kind of, yeah, I like football, it's fun. But, you know, I've got family, I've got friends and I enjoy my life and that's much more important to me. But to say that is one thing and then to produce what he did on the pitch was amazing. But he was such a popular figure at Chelsea with everybody from managers to your tea ladies. Everybody liked Eden Hazard. And he was a confident lad, but the way that he would express it was something that it was difficult for even Jose Mourinho to get mad at.

4:22All right, then. We're going to talk a lot about Eden Hazard today. We're also going to have a quick quiz question for you. Duncan, a rare opportunity for you to have a go at this because producer Charlie's come up with this in honour of Eden Hazard, kind of. The question is, Eden Hazard was an unused substitute when Real Madrid won the Champions League in 2022. who though are the only two Belgian players to score in a Champions League final? I mean, don't give us the answer now. If you do know, do you know? It's a tough one. I've got one. Matt, shake his head. One. Cox is halfway there. Listener, how about you?

5:01We've got a show in which you can ruminate on that. We'll get back to you later on with the two Belgian players who have scored in a Champions League final. Just two of them. Right, let's have a bit of football history Yeah, we always have a bit of an almanac A rummage through the pages To kick off a totally extra What's this week in football history brought us through the years? Well, 12th of November 1881 So the very first football match between Newton Heath and St Mark's 144 years later they're still facing each other as Manchester United and Manchester City. How about that? 15th of November 1964, Johan Cruyff made his professional debut for Ajax.

5:47He was aged 17. He scored the only goal for the side in what was a 3-1 defeat against GVAV Rapid Taz. Do you know? I have to high five. Good team. Yeah. 10th of November 1969, Faustino Esprilja and Jens Lehmann were both born. And the 16th of November 1973 score a goal for 20 ,000 waiters This was Fabio Capello scoring against England at Wembley the first time Italy had ever won away to England Do you recall the goal? Giorgio Canaglia out on the right puts it across Peter Shilton makes a complete hash fit What? Doesn't sound realistic And Capello's just standing there and kind of lumps it in.

6:52Massively famous goal for the Italians. And then afterwards, because the papers have made reference to all the waiters who would be there at Wembley, Capello rather archly dedicated his goal to them. and won well done him. That game, by the way, was also Bobby Moore's 108th and final appearance for England. Imagine you said you got Moore and Capello that day and said one of these men will manage England. Who would have guessed? Some people would have guessed it was 50-50, but yeah, unusual. All right then, on to today's topic, Eden Hazard. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network.

7:33You have hedonism in English, we have hedonism, the art of enjoying Eden Hazard. Yeah, a few goals, a few beautiful goals.

8:04I remember stories of after training there was a burger van somewhere near Stamford Bridge where the club had to basically tell the people who owned it to stop selling burgers to Eden Hazard. Eden Hazard, the Belgian, appears to kick 17-year-old ball boy Charlie Morgan in the ribs. Oh, it's going to be a red card! The game against Strawberry. Yeah, Trues. Strawberry, yeah, Strawberry. It's the same for me. Here's Eden Hazard.

8:372012 was a very good year for Chelsea crowned European champions in Munich that May they then signed their defining player for the rest of the decade shortly afterwards Eden Hazard both of his parents were footballers his father Thierry played in the Belgian second tier for La Louvier his mother Serene was a striker in the Belgian first division I didn't know this she was still playing in fact while pregnant with Eden, which I feel is significant. Anyway, they had four sons, all became professionals. Eden's the one who was the most successful. In five years at Lille, he won them their first Ligue 1 title in 57 years, was twice Ligue 1 player of the year, twice young player of the year.

9:16The only other man in Ligue 1 who's matched that is Kylian Mbappe. Anyway, summer of 2012, everybody wanted him. Chelsea got him. Matt, you had been a huge signing for Chelsea, of course, the previous year. what was the buzz around Eden's arrival? Well yeah, unlike Hazard it wasn't a recommendation from Joe Cole that got me the job obviously Joe Cole played with Hazard briefly and I think sold him quite strongly on the fact that Chelsea was the club for him I think there was excitement I know within the club there was a bit of reticence when he announced on Twitter before the club did and before the deal was made public, I am signing for the European champion.

10:03And that made people think, oh dear, we might have a bit of a live one here. What are we getting ourselves into? It proved not to be the case. I think everybody was excited, but it's one of those kind of out of sight, out of mind to an extent. Obviously, Liga not massively followed over here. So we didn't know hugely what we were getting and he was joining the European champion. So it wasn't like he was joining the club down on their luck. who needed a star signing to boost him. And I think that probably helped him quite a lot. His debut game in the Premier League was away at, was it Wigan? Yeah.

10:35It was Wigan. And when you look back now, it's funny to see them coming out. You've got Juan Mata leading them out, Bertrand, Eden himself, Fernando Torres, Frank Lampard, Mikel Jonobi, stroke any order of those words you want, Joe Cole John Terry ooh David Luiz Branislav Ivanovic and Petr Cech what a side yeah it's funny because actually at that time it did feel like Chelsea were you know it was the there were a few remnants of the Mourinho era left but it was sort of a changing line up and it did feel like they weren't as strong as they had been even though they were European champions in a slightly fortuitous way but yeah you look back at that team you're like blimey that's a good line up It was a team that kind of ran it as much as the manager did in Yacekzi, Lampard, Terry, Drogba, obviously the big voices in that.

11:30And they quickly, or a couple of them, Lampard and Terry, this is with the help of my friend and colleague, Lee Parker, who's the man on the ground at Cobham for Chelsea, recalled a couple of early training sessions where Hazard hadn't put the kind of level of effort in that was typical of those key figureheads who had such a say in how everything worked at Chelsea at that time. and he was pulled aside by Terry and Lampard specifically. Come on, you've got to up your work rate a bit here. To which he replied, give me the ball. And then he'd nutmeg them, leave them on the floor, score a goal and they'd say, okay, all right, fair enough then.

12:03And even quickly when Jose Mourinho came back and this is very un-Mourinho-like, he went from this is how the team works, everybody does it to right, the 10 of you defend him, he does what he wants, just give him the ball, which I can't think Mourinho saying that to too many players, but yeah, that's the kind of impact that he had. Brilliant. He hit the ground running in that opening game against Wigan, winning a penalty, also setting up the opening goal for Chelsea with an assist for Ivanovic. Hazard, neat little turn away from the new man, Ramis, and he slipped it through to Branislav. Ivanovic has got forward, could be a good start for Chelsea.

12:38It is a goal inside two minutes. A wonderful piece of creation from Adrian Hazard to set Ivanovic away. And what a start for the European champions. What were his numbers like that first season, Duncan? 11 assists and 9 goals, which for a young player in his first season in our league is very impressive. He also kicked a ball boy. Yeah. Ball boy's kicked one. He didn't kick a ball boy. He kicked the ball. And yeah, the ball boy was very close to being a ball man. I'm sure we're all familiar, are we, with what happened to that ball boy when he became a ball man and the fact that he and Edin were reunited a couple of years ago for a promotion for said ball man, Charlie Morgan's vodka, which has him at a net worth of£55 million at the time of recording.

13:31His dad was a director at Swansea, by the way. That's why he was a ball boy. But yeah, Hazard kicked the ball, not the ball boy. And yes, subsequently tweeted, nice thing about retirement is catching up with old friends. You've come a long way in 11 years, my friend. and there they are holding the vodka and smiling. Pregariously. Lovely stuff. All right, well, he was already a lot of fun on and off the field. That season, Matt, young Eden Hazard is voted Chelsea's Player of the Year as the club stormed to a Europa League victory under Rafa Benitez, much-loved former Chelsea manager. Yeah, and Benitez, obviously, not a manager who's known for his love of Mavericks particularly either, but I think, like everybody, I remember Maurizio Sarri having to kind of bend to this as well, that he was such an important player for the team that you do essentially have to just give him the license to do whatever he'd like.

14:22But he quickly influenced games and scored goals, but not a kind of stat padder. He did get a fair few penalties, but he would score significant goals is the thing in games against big opponents. And I think that was something that quickly came to the fore that he wasn't getting the fourth in a four nil win or whatever, even in that season early on the October. I remember him scoring a stoppage time penalty in what turned out to be a 5-4 League Cup win against Man United. Crazy game at Stamford Bridge that went to extra time. And yeah, lots of big goals throughout that campaign. And just a sign of what was to come from him, basically.

14:58Astonishingly good from the penalty spot as well, Eden Hazard. Very good from the penalty spot, albeit there were occasions when he missed, but he would often put in the rebound. We'll get on to the title win in 2015. But yeah, even on the rare occasions that he did miss. And a bit of a trendsetter, actually, in that he would wait for the goalkeeper to commit before he struck the ball. And notably, Jorginho, future Chelsea player, took that off him. But yeah, he was one of the first I can remember to make that a key part of his penalty repertoire. Michael, you say he was the best player in the Premier League in no less than three different seasons.

15:31What made him so much better? I think at his best, he was a goal scorer and he was an assist and he was a dribbler. And yeah, I mean, he was just like the classic best player, wasn't he? You just give him the ball and he could beat loads of players. And his best goals, when you watch him back, it's actually amazing how many times he scores great dribbles. I don't think there's that many players in Premier League history who've scored as many great dribbles as him. Maybe Thierry Henry would be up there. But he was fantastic. and I think that you know he never won any of the big he was never really in the conversation for Ballon d 'Or or anything like that but I think when you look at Chelsea's player of the year he won that four times and I always think that's quite a good barometer of how players are playing like the supporters who just watch him every single game or a lot of them do anyway and I mean even when there was you know in 2017 when there was a fuss about Kante and Kante won the PFA player of the year you know the supporters who watched him week in week out were like no Hazard's been our best player and I think the good thing about him he was an entertainer as well I think he really enjoyed playing football he enjoyed being watched he enjoyed a bit of trickery and even though, you know, like a lot of players in a lot of kind of fancy foreign players in Premier League history he did get a bit of physical attention he could take it he didn't mind that he almost, he's a bit like Jack Grealish in that he saw it as a bit of a badge of honour getting fouled so much so yeah, there was just I don't think there was anything to dislike about him really.

17:03I think he was just a fantastic player. Without lurching into kind of like generic memories, he is the sort of player that fans love, whoever you support. You know, the sort of, he played football like as if he was a fan. You know, he went out there and, oh, we've got a game over here on Saturday. I'll just go and, yeah, score this. Played the way we'd like to play and trained the way we'd probably like to train as well. Yeah, exactly. And it was a bit of a throwback, I think, for a lot of Chelsea fans to their sort of teams from the 1970s and stuff when, you know, the Peter Osgoods and people like that.

17:34And I think those sort of figures, and they are, I guess, less seen in modern football, that you still get them, but he was very much someone that came in and dominated and did it in a way that got everyone, not just Chelsea fans, excited. Right, really brave player as well. You were touching on the physical reception he got from the Premier League, but he regularly won over 100 fouls in a season for Chelsea. Another feature, Matt, of his game, which no less than Yaya Torre picks up on was his use of his posterior. Yeah, lovely big bum that he could swing about to great effect and he definitely needed it.

18:13I remember Jose Mourinho referring to him as the hardest player in the Premier League because he would just be kicked from pillar to post. It was a great shot from a game, it might have been against Liverpool, a game at Stamford Bridge where his socks around the heel had been ripped to shreds and were just covered in blood and bruises And yet, I can't recall him diving and I can't recall him being up in the referee's face very often. But maybe it was because he knew he had the power of his ass to hold people off. Yaya says, when the ball arrives at Hazard, he can already sense the opponent coming towards him.

18:44So he waits until the last moment and uses his bum to block them. It pushes the opponent away, almost like a punch. And then when he's opened up that space between him and the defender, he will power away and start the attack. Yeah, he was brilliant. that good at getting the ball in tight spaces. Happy with his back to goal, I think. Happy receiving the ball with his back to goal. Good on the turn. Yeah, he was, I mean, for a small player, short player, and someone who didn't look, you know, he didn't spend any time in the gym. I think that was well established at Chelsea. Just didn't bother beyond what he had to do as part of the regime.

19:21He was very strong. He was very good at holding off defenders, getting his body in the way of the ball I think is such an important quality in football and yeah, in terms of dribbling I mean, there was the goal against Arsenal he scored at Stamford Bridge I think there's two players just trying to foul him maybe Coquelin, Koscielny I love it when that happens when a player tries to foul a player He fouls arguably Coquelin I mean, this is possibly his greatest goal but as the pair of them are racing towards the Arsenal goal, he kind of waggles his left foot out in front of Coquelin and I think trips him up Coquelin spins away in this kind of mad 360 crash a bit like a chariot misreading the curve on Ben Hur or something and on goes Eden Hazard to then take Koscielny out of the picture and another defender and the Arsenal keeper as well Good header from Costa Now Hazard Awful lot of room between he and the goal Coquelin doing his best to stay with him he had no chance Still Hazard and still And Eden Hazard Oh my goodness me the genius comes up with another moment of magic an extraordinary individual goal and Chelsea are on their way to three points Go on then, let's have a little chat about Best Eden Hazard goals, Matt Yeah, that Arsenal one is up there it was nice for Chelsea fans that scored it against Petr Cech as well I can remember that one really clearly commentating on that one My favourite is the one against West Ham, which was his penultimate goal at Stamford Bridge.

20:59The first, the brace, just because I can remember everything about that. I can remember every line of commentary that I did on it. And it's not particularly good commentary, but I really like it because I was just reacting to what was happening. And I remember looking to my left and above me to see Clive Walker and Pat Nevin, two former Chelsea players of the year, not dissimilar to Hazard, both with very wet eyes, as we all did, which sounds dramatic, but we knew that we weren't going to get to see this very often.

21:52This is goal in a season for me. Absolutely brilliant, Bain and Hazard. I think his best goal, he scored some absolute beauties at Anfield. The best was in the League Cup under Maurizio Sarri, where he cuts him from the sideline, beats Keita, beats three or four other players, and absolutely wallops the shot into the corner of the net. He was a dribbler, scored a lot of dribbling goals, as Michael said, but he would usually sweep the ball into the net. He was a real sweeper of a finisher, but this was just raw power. nearly burst the net absolutely extraordinary but there's four or five other contenders I remember a goal against Man United at Stamford Bridge in a 1-0 win it was 2015 and he'd done nothing in the game it was 38th minute and it was literally like you could see him in front of the east stand almost chatting with supporters oh what's that you got mustard on that hot dog yeah looks good yeah I might get one of those themselves and then somebody shouts at him one of his teammates do something all right well give me the ball then gets the ball dribbles through everybody scores the winning goal says what were you worried about and that was kind of hazard in a nutshell in a nutshell that West Ham one Michael is extraordinary there's a rank the two lines of West Ham players ranked in front of him and he just runs straight at them and through them like one commentator says a knife through hot butter or possibly a hot knife through butter but yeah yeah uh yeah and and right through the center as well I mean sometimes you see kind of dribble out wide, beat the wide player in the fullback and then score.

23:17But not often you see just a direct dribble through the middle of the pitch. The little shuffle between the feet was very Gascoigne-esque as well. None other than Declan Rice, one of the players that he bypassed with ease that night. It was a shame that he scored quite a perfunctory goal later on in the game as well, which was actually his last goal at Stamford Bridge. It was fine, another swept finish from about eight yards, but you kind of wanted that to be the one that he went out on. consistency was a question I guess for Eden Hazard and there's one season in particular where that reared its ugly head 2015-16 where he finally missed his first penalty in English football he went on a scoreless run that spanned 30 matches flirted with a move to Paris Saint-Germain but he also did that season score and this is another brilliant strike the goal that won the title admittedly for Leicester but still Well, yeah, I mean, that was going to be my choice for favourite goal, just because, like you say, that season was very odd.

24:16Chelsea, as defending champions, were abysmal, you know, flirting with the relegation zone at Christmas. So Mourinho got sacked. But then, like you say, he won the title. And that game, which is obviously known as the Battle of the Bridge, is it the best game in Premier League history? It's definitely in the top three or four. and the fact that Chelsea was so desperate to beat Spurs or draw with Spurs and deny them the title I think is an element of football that's underrated at times and it was no surprise that he was the guy that made it happen. They were 2-0 down I think, he was sat on the bench Matt.

24:53He saw that as his apology for the season that he'd had, he was quite explicit about that, before the game, we've been terrible, I've been terrible. His first goal in that season didn't come until April, incredibly. They all came within a four-game spell. And yeah, he basically thought, I've got to help put this right. We've really let everybody down, me specifically. There's only one way that we can salvage it. And even this isn't good enough for Chelsea to just be stopping somebody else from winning the title. But yeah, beautiful finish. One of his trademarks in front of the away end. Capped it off with the classic hazard knee slide.

25:28And a good end to a very bad season. Costa turns out of final. Hazard! He has done it. He won the title for Chelsea a year ago. He might just have won the title for Leicester City tonight. 2-2 at the bridge. I think there's mitigation into why he struggled so much. I think he had quite a serious back injury, which wasn't particularly publicised at the time. And that was definitely a factor into why he dropped off to such a ridiculous extent. Lots of people writing in about Eden Hazard At the Bridge Pod says I see Eden Hazard as one of the final Maverick-style players Whenever he had the ball, you would get off your seat You never knew what he would do But you knew it would be magical Darlington Podolsky, my favourite ever Premier League player Why did he waste his move to Real Madrid By enjoying his summer holiday too much Says Aklag, although you could put that the other way around Why did he waste his summer holiday by moving to Real Madrid afterwards.

26:32We'll get onto that topic later on. Costa says, my favourite moment was definitely the strawberry Shrewsbury moment. Was that with you, Matt? That was not with me. That was with somebody else. But he, I mean, somebody English is a second language, right? When he first came, he did a few interviews with Chelsea TV and his teammates would always be in the background taking the mickey out of him. So he basically stopped doing them for a year and then picked it up again once he'd got a bit more English. But once he was relaxed, particularly with the in-house media, it could be really funny. I remember there was one occasion, there's a clip of it somewhere, where he's doing an interview and Cesar Azpilicueta, who was his best mate at Chelsea, they live next door, kids, really good friends, always hung out together, walked past saying, hey, I'm Eden Hazard, I'm the best player in England.

27:22And Hazard, without missing a beat, just went, maybe it's a world? and carried on the interview and he'd really kind of got it then. He was just a really funny, nice guy. But yeah, it took him a while. You know, other footballers, if they'd made that strawberry-shrewsbury thing, they'd have said, don't put that out and then it kicked up a stink about it. He just found it really funny and that's reflective of his attitude to what being a footballer was. It's sort of faintly ludicrous. It is pretty funny. The game against Strawberry. Yeah, shrewsbury. Shrewsbury, yeah, strawberry. It's the same for me.

27:51Is it true you used to buy burgers from the burger van outside the Stamford Bridge post-game? I never saw this, but I have certainly heard about it. And he is obviously very clear that diet was not the main thing for him. But I think there's something in the fact that, you know, he just wanted to make sure that his mental health, as much as his physical health, was in good nick. And for him, that was all about enjoying life in terms of what he ate and being around his friends and his family. And I'm told that in the dressing room before kickoff, when your Terry's, your Lampard's, your Drogba's are getting themselves in the zone, He's literally just FaceTiming his kids.

28:26Oh, sorry, we've got to go out and play the game now, speak to you later kind of thing. Just completely letting all the stress of being a footballer bypassing. Fion D says, not to question his professionalism, but if he'd been as focused as CR7 to the game, could he have achieved more? He actually addresses this a little bit. He says, if I'd been like Cristiano, I'd have had a burnout. OK, I was lazy. I guess the sadness is that not really through any thought of his own, And he did essentially burn out subsequent to leaving Chelsea. But we'll get on to what happens when he makes them move to Madrid very, very shortly.

28:59Because it wasn't just at Chelsea that he was delighting fans. There was also his work with the Belgian national side where he'd become really the focal point of their golden generation. Helping the team to third spot, their best ever finish at a World Cup in 2018 in Russia. a tournament in which he did many things but most notably perhaps Brazilling Brazil. Do you remember the quarterfinal against the Celisau, Michael? Yeah, brilliant game. I think he tended to turn up at international tournaments as well. That was probably his best one. I think he was close to the best player in that tournament to be honest and I think people sometimes look at that Belgian generation having underachieved but they did quite well in World Cups and they generally just lost by one goal to the team who eventually won it and produced some fantastic games.

29:48The Brazil won the game against Japan as well that year. Yeah, I really enjoyed watching them at international tournaments as well. I think they were entertaining and flexible and the relationship he had with De Bruyne and Lukaku was fantastic. So yeah, I think his internet, I mean, by 2022, I remember watching Belgium and Katani was really at the end. It was quite sad to watch actually because I think he was still the captain by that point and just couldn't do it. But at his peak, yeah, I think he was exciting and a real national hero in Belgium. I don't think there's the feeling in Belgium that they underachieved.

30:27I think they're proud of that generation and what they did. Well, let's get a perspective from Belgium with Christophe Thoreau, who joins us for a bit of a chat about Eden Hazard next.

30:43This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Oli Kaye and the very best football writers around. Christophe, Eden Hazard for Belgian fans, what does he mean? Well, it means pleasure, I think. I just invented a new word. I think it's a bit of, you have hedonism in English, and we have hedonism, the art of enjoying Eden Hazard. I think he was the one that gave joy to football fans, basically, with his dribbling, with his character too. He's always been a funny guy, and that's why Belgians like him, because he was funny.

31:28Everybody maybe would have thought he could have got more out of his career. but yeah the character was he was just like he like he was he didn't it was not a superstar in a way of behavior but he was just enjoyment on the pitch and off the pitch took a while for belgian national team managers to really trust him and give him a starting role yes yes it took a while and there was i don't know if it's known in english the famous incident where he was the Burger Gate. That's Burger Gate. So, it was taken off by Georges Lé, because he was then the national manager and he just walked off and because it was the last game of the, basically, of the season, he just left, went to the dressing room and went to eat a burger while the game was still going on.

32:21So, yeah, there he got, like, his reputation got a little knock, but then afterwards, definitely first when Mark Wilmot came in, he started performing and he was really at his best under Roberto Martinez. I think the World Cup in 2018, yeah, that was Eden Hazard at his best. That's the best Eden Hazard that we have seen. He also had set his mind on that World Cup, basically, and when he set his mind on something, he basically wanted to win that World Cup because he felt that was the last dance of the golden generation where they They were really at the top all around 28-29. And that ended in third place and not glory.

33:04But yeah, it took a while. I think Euro 2016, Derry was already good, but the rest of the team wasn't. So at the World Cup, we saw the real Eden Hazard. And we haven't seen him at that level afterwards. Only at Chelsea in his last season. And then, yeah, it was a shame what happened at Real Madrid because afterwards, the national team, he didn't perform either anymore. 2018, that World Cup really is consecration. I think in terms of international football, peak hazard and peak Belgian as well. What were your standout memories from that tournament? I think the Japan game, where Eden didn't play a huge role in that game against Japan, where we went 2-0 down and qualified in the end with a beautiful counter-attack.

33:53But Brazil basically is the highlight for all Belgians, I think. If we talk back about one game, that's Brazil beating Brazil 2-1 with Courtois playing, being the big hero, Adam Hazard. Yeah, you couldn't take the ball of him. Kevin De Bruyne, the mastermind behind the counter-attack. So, yeah, Brazil, Brazil. Everybody's still talking about Brazil. And Brazil is, in a way, linked to Hazard too, because back in the days at Chelsea, he used to call the Cobham Training Centre Cobham Cabana, with his typical sense of humour. And his teammates called him Hazardinho. So anyway, it was the Belgian-Brazilian, basically.

34:39Yeah, he set a World Cup record, as you no doubt know, for successful dribbles in that game. 100 % success rate in 10 dribbles. and against Brazil, so especially sweet. When he was at his top, yeah, you couldn't take the ball of him. I remember, I think I saw that clip earlier today when I was scrolling through Instagram. There was a clip where he was playing against Sabaleta in a game of Manchester City game and he just destroyed him with his dribbling. So yeah, when he had set his mind on something, as we all know, Adam wasn't the most professional player. He didn't like training. Managers would get annoyed by him because he wasn't even always his full percent.

35:22But when he had set his mind or something, he could do everything. And I think at a certain point, he was the closest pure in potential to the Messi's and Ronaldo's. Only, yeah, his mind didn't want to go there. He just wanted to stay himself, just wanted to enjoy and not having pain, for instance. Like real top players, they go through the pain. He couldn't play through pain. When he had pain, he walked off. Christophe, would you say, finally, that he is Belgium's greatest ever player? Well, that's a difficult debate because it's between him and Kevin De Bruyne. And in sense of style, I think he's the greatest.

36:02But I think, yeah, in sense of passing and precision and getting the maximum out of his career, I think, yeah, Kevin De Bruyne might win that debate. But purely for watching, I would say, Adam Hazard. And also for his character, I would say. And so, yeah, it's a close call. I can choose between the two, basically. It's difficult. If you put me down now on the spot and you say, I have to choose, I will go, I think, Adam just for his character. Because he was so funny. You must have spent a lot of time with him off the field, Christoph. What was he like? You know, when players, they often change telephone numbers.

36:42And when Eden changed phone numbers, I think a year ago again, I got suddenly a message from an unknown number. Hi, this is the king of Belgium. And I thought, who is that? And then I sent him a smiley and then he said, it's Eden Hazard. So that's basically him. So that's the way he, yeah, he has, yeah, he has special character in how he, how he treats people to how he makes jokes with other people, how he introduces himself and it's just him taking the out of himself i'm the king of belgium he says that jokingly he doesn't mean that but yeah it's uh it's really yeah it's really funny that's uh that's why i like him we enjoy ourselves when we when we are then the fuse we always had fun when we saw each other he took the mickey out of me i took the mickey out of him so we've had a great 10 years together, basically.

37:38I mean, just to sort of underline how popular he was in Belgium, he's the last footballer to have won Belgian Sportsman of the Year. It's obviously dominated by a cyclist, so Remco, Evenapol and Wout van Aert have mopped it up in recent years. But 2018, Hazard is the last footballer to do it. All right, as a footballer or as a cyclist? Well, he's won it as a footballer. Maybe one day he can complete an unlikely double. Wouldn't that be extraordinary? All right. Well, post that World Cup 2019, he signed off from Chelsea with many delights, including a cup win against Arsenal in the Europa League all the way over there in Baku.

38:17With two goals and an assist. Matt, you were commentating. What a finale. Yeah, it was lovely that he got the last goal as well. He scored a penalty, but then a really, a really nice goal to rubber stamp what was an emphatic victory for Chelsea. But it was after that where I think it would have been BT Sport at the time, whoever it was, the chap who interviewed him on the pitch eventually managed to get out of him that, yes, he was leaving. And there was a real contrast in the way that he'd done it with the way that Thibaut Courtois had done it a year earlier. Obviously, his international teammate who had just sulked and forced his way out of Chelsea and done it in a quite unpleasant manner.

38:55Whereas Hazard was kind of class all the way. look, this is what I want. Hopefully it will happen, but I'm not going to kick up a stink and down tools for this season. And lovely that his last game was winning a European trophy and scoring twice in the final. Oh, they're giving it away, Arsenal. And there goes Hazard, and he's found Giroud. Angle's not great. Worked it back to Edwin Hazard!

39:19Labour on the trophy. You knew that he'd have something to say in this final. he scored twice in it and Chelsea's three goal cushion is restored almost instantly Pretty sure it was Darrell Curry who prompted that out of him Anyway, the decision had been made to move to Real Madrid We'll get on to that next

39:47You're listening to the Totally Football Show with James Richardson now with you four times a week Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. If you had a footballing time machine, Michael, right after you'd said to JT, mind you don't slip for this penalty, it's been raining a lot, and Christian Gross maybe take the taxi to Spurs instead, would you lock Eden Hazard in a room and beg him not to go to the Bernabeu? Maybe. I mean, I think it was a funny time in the Premier League. I mean, Chelsea probably weren't as big a force by that point.

40:26He'd gone to the Liverpool-Manchester City era. I think Hazard had had a really good Premier League spell. He went out on a high. Obviously, he turned up at Real Madrid somewhat overweight. But really, it comes down to an injury he suffered quite early on in his time there, which he just never recovered from. So I respect him for wanting to try something different. He'd been at Chelsea for a very long time by that point. I mean, seven years. the thing with Real Madrid is I think you you have to be prepared to be a real superstar and I think at Chelsea he had quite a nice balance where he was completely revered by all the supporters but actually he could live a very quiet life away from away from the pitch and away from the training ground and I don't think you ever get that at Real Madrid and I think with a couple of players I think Gareth Bale being the other one if you're not suited to that personality wise I think it can be very tough and the thing with Hazard is that I could be well you might be able to call me out on something that contradicts this but I don't think he ever did anything to want to be like a star you know he was never seen at you know celebrity events he wasn't desperately chasing kind of sponsorship stuff he was just a quiet guy and I just don't think Real Madrid is is the club for you if that's the case obviously the physical injury problems you couldn't have anticipated but even at the time as someone who was a massive fan like I say I thought he'd been the best player in the Premier League that year.

41:46And that's the year where the Premier League teams dominate in European competition. So there is quite a lot of competition to be the best player. But I was a bit nervous for him at Real Madrid, to be honest. Yeah, I think you have to sort of convince the fans immediately you're a superstar. I mean, look at the way Jude Bellingham went there and immediately acted like he'd played for Real Madrid his whole life and scoring goals and was perfectly natural. And as Michael says, Hazard didn't really get a chance to do that. So we don't really know how that would have turned out. But yeah, he was a sort of an ordinary man who was brilliant at football.

42:18He'd had an injury sustained in the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain from his Belgian teammate Thomas Meunier in November of 2019, which really, I think, marked his whole time there. It was actually a recurrence of an ankle injury he'd picked up on international duty with Belgium, which required a small metal plate put into his ankle or onto his ankle. And he then fractured it again after he came back for Real Madrid. So his whole time there, four seasons, seven goals, and I think 12 assists in 76 appearances. One stat, he never played a single minute against Barcelona. so all his time their four seasons never featured against them once famously of course most egregiously Matt laughed with his former Chelsea teammates after the Blues knocked Real Madrid out of the Champions League yeah and incurred the wrath of El Chiringuito didn't he I bet he doesn't even know that y Hazard partiendose la caja

43:46I bet it's never even come across his radar, and even if he does, I bet he doesn't, couldn't care less. I think, again, it comes back to the perspective thing, doesn't it? I can see why it would enrage some but again it comes back to Real Madrid and maybe it wasn't what he thought it was going to be and there's a bit of naivety on his part there isn't it because everybody else knew what it was going to be but I'm with Michael and Duncan you've got to have a certain personality I think maybe Trent Alexander-Arnold's finding that out now as well and it was one of those that looked good on paper for him I think it was a box that he was desperate to tick but when he got there they weren't what he thought it was going to be and vice versa.

44:27He left them at the end of the 22-23 season and then a few months after he'd departed from Madrid, he announced his decision to retire from professional football at the age of just 32. Following year, Lille renamed their training ground the Terrain Eden Hazard. Hazard says at the unveiling, this is the Eden Hazard pitch, so no gym, no running, only playing football and breaking ankles. It was a genuinely brilliant quote. Has anything been named after him at the Chelsea at all? Matt, the burger van? It could be, couldn't it? Actually, it's interesting that there are pictures of players and managers of reputes all around what was the old shed end wall.

45:12And I don't think he has one, which is kind of weird. But he definitely deserves it. I'll have to double check that next time I'm there. But yeah, training definitely wasn't his thing. I remember being at Cobham once for a Maurizio Sarri murder ball session, which is one of these things where the ball never goes out of play and you have to run around for ages. And Sarri, as was his want, was just absolutely screaming at everybody, furious about everything all the time. And as I just sort of walked off and went, nah, I'm not doing this. And Sarri shouted at him, he said, boss, I'll win the game on Saturday and just trotted off and sat and watched everybody else do it.

45:47And you just have to go, OK, fine. He probably will. And lo and behold, I think he did. He had an amazing career. Is it OK for us to feel short-changed, do you think, that the ending was so early and that maybe four years after he left Chelsea were kind of wasted? Maybe, but I think he'd done it for a very long period of time. I mean, he had that one-off season 2015-16 we've spoken about. But he was top class really for probably eight of those nine years. and I think we shouldn't forget, you know, if you go to a side like Chelsea, it's almost not inevitable, but you're likely to win trophies. He'd done it earlier at Lille, you know, when he was 20 years old, when Ligue 1 was actually competitive.

46:32He played a really big part in them winning the title. So, yeah, I don't know about shortchanged. I think if you look at the quality he produced over the course of his career, there aren't many players who played as well as he did in as many seasons and as many international tournaments. But yeah, obviously it was concentrated quite heavily in his 20s, of course. In his induction video for the Premier League, he says that he realised his dream to play and have fun on pitches all around the world. So I guess he didn't feel short-changed. I mean, you can argue that 2018-19 is probably the highest quality Premier League we've ever seen.

47:12And it was his final season at Chelsea and he scored 16 goals and assisted 15. I mean, there's not many players that have ever kind of got over 15 in both categories in a single season. So, yeah, fair play. And then in terms of his kind of physical condition and robustness, I remember looking up a stat towards the end of his time, well, after he'd just left Chelsea when everyone was still talking about, you know, injuries and how would he get on at Madrid. At that point, summer 2019, he was the only attacking midfielder or forward in Premier League history to have played in seven or more seasons and have made at least 30 appearances in each one.

47:49So yes, his career tailed off at the end with injury, but for his peak at Chelsea, he was incredibly reliable. He's the kind of player that football needs, no? Do we have enough of them still? Was he part of a dying breed? Who would you point to now with that kind of approach to the game? Maybe not off the field, but certainly in the way that they actually play football. I think Yamin Le Mans is a pretty similar kind of case I think there's a few I think Cole Palmer to a certain extent has that kind of aura and that attitude towards the game I think people like him because he just again doesn't seem to want to be anything more than a good footballer and enjoy that so yeah I think probably you can go through every era and think that you know there's a lack of players like this I think every era goes wow he was the last one and then pichiro then produces another one and then people go he's the last one and then and on we go palmer's the the really interesting comparison i think and it's something that i i'm conscious of not doing all the time when i'm commentating for chelsea on cole palmer of saying hey this guy's a bit like edin hazard but the fact that palmer was so through the academy system and a product of his time and you know mental by pep guardiola and enzo maresco who steeped in that same kind of tradition who was Palmer's manager when he was in the Manchester City development squad as well.

49:14It is interesting that there's a definite comparison, not just in their style of play, but in their attitude toward football, I think. And they're both the kind... Daniel Taylor of The Athletic used to write about Wayne Rooney, that he'd make you quicken your step on your walk to the ground. And I always felt that way about Eden Hazard as well. Like you say, do we feel short-changed by the way it ended, James? I'm more like in his debt, I think, because the amount of times I can think of making my way to Stamford Bridge and, you know, best job in the world and all that. But sometimes like any job, you don't really want to go to work for whatever reason.

49:49And then you think, I'm going to go and get to see Eden Hazard play football today. And he might only do one thing in the game, but it will definitely be memorable. And like Cole Palmer and like Wayne Rooney, that is exactly what he would do more often than not. And the fact that, you know, when it was my job to do the post-match interviews, you'd often dread it, depending on who it was that you had to get. If it was Edin, you know that A, he would do it, B, that he would say something interesting or funny. And if there was an issue, I remember one time, and you'll have had this, James, the camera op was trying to get the camera to work and it couldn't.

50:20And obviously he wants to get home and his kids are there and you're kind of like, oh, sorry about this. So in a moment of desperation, I showed him my FBL team, which had him as captain. and he had no idea what FPL was. And I said, you get a double point. I got double points heading because of your goal because you're my captain. And he's just like, so I get the most points. Yeah, pretty cool. And that was it. It's just like, oh, great. That was, we've managed to fill it. Now the camera's working and we can do the interview. And then he's getting his sons over. Boys, boys, look how many points I've got.

50:47And just, yeah, fabulous. Magnificent. It's so nice that he was enjoying himself, even in a post-game or maybe especially in a post-game interview with you, Matt. What was your favourite memory then of all your years with Eden? My favourite memory is the West Ham goal just because of how we all felt about it. I can remember having a long discussion actually about how he was making us feel watching football, which is not something that's very typical for a load of middle-aged men to do. And just thinking this guy is making us have conversations that we wouldn't normally have in a football environment.

51:21And yeah, the fact that I've spoken to a lot of footballers who are brilliant footballers and maybe not such great people, but the fact that he could have been anybody in any time doing anything, he just happened to be one of the best footballers in the world. There's lots of times in my week when I think about things that Eden Hazard did on the pitch and maybe that says something about me, but it certainly says a lot about him. And just bringing it back to what we said at the start, I mean, this is going to sound a bit trite, but the fact that he's cycled up Monvon too, which is, no, that took him over two hours to do it.

51:50It's like, you don't do that for fun, really. but I think he gets sport in a way that a lot of professional footballers or professional sports people don't. He really kind of sees the romance in it and the kind of glory and you kind of got that feeling when you watched him play. He knew when he'd done something magical and he's not doing that on Monvon too but he's in the wheel steps of legend. And he kind of gets sport in a way that a lot of sports people don't. Do you have a favourite Inazard memory, Michael? I just remember being at Stamford Bridge for a game in 2014 when they beat Newcastle 3-0 and he scored a hat-trick.

52:26I think two in the first half and maybe one just after half-time. And it was just one of those games that was just miles better than everyone on the pitch. It was just a matter of decide who had Eden Hazard won. It was, you know, I don't necessarily buy into this maverick, you know, there aren't enough mavericks around anymore. But it is quite rare these days that you see a game that is so dominant by one player. And, you know, it's in the modern era. Everyone knows what it's all about. Everyone knows Hazard's going to get the ball. Everyone knows the zones he picks it up on. And, you know, they put multiple players around him and just couldn't be stopped.

53:05So that was the game. it wasn't a particularly momentous game but yeah just 3-0 home win and him being 10 out of 10 and everyone else being 6 out of 10 was really fun Billy Quay to defend the situation well and Chelsea can look to counter as they do so devastatingly with Willian Newcastle getting bodies back quickly they knew what was coming here's Hazard still going gets it back from Eto 'o oh my goodness me another sublime Eden Hazard goal another sumptuous Chelsea move we are being treated to something special this afternoon it's Chelsea 2 Newcastle United 0 and the Magpies did not heed the Hazard warning very nice Matt you were saying that you have to remind yourself not to compare Colt Palmer to Eden Hazard did you back in the day have to check yourself similarly to not compare Eden to Gianfranco Zola and if people say to you all-time Chelsea, which?

54:05Zola or Hazard? Where do you stand? It's Hazard, but there's not much in it. Another of the conversations we had was to the difference between what makes the best player and the greatest player in a club's history. And Zola was in the conversation, but we settled on Hazard being the best player, as in the most skilful, most talented footballer. And then we couldn't really split Frank Lampard and Peter Osgood as the greatest players in Chelsea's history. Obviously, Lampard is the all-time top scorer and lifted the Champions League, etc. But yeah, Hazard, we had as the best. And we mentioned Chelsea's Player of the Year award that he won four times.

54:45It's interesting that Cole Palmer won it in 2024. But since Hazard, it went Kovacic, Mount, Mount, Thiago Silva, Palmer. And then last year, Moises Kaysedo. So I think that tells you a little something about how maybe Chelsea, but maybe football more broadly has gone that perhaps there are fewer of these flair players doing it to such a consistent extent so often. I mean, you could argue that Zola was more talented if you wanted. I think in terms of level of performance, I don't think Zola was anywhere close to Hazard. I mean, Hazard was doing it season after season. You look at the awards he won, how often he got in the PFA Tim of the Year.

55:21It was almost every year he was in England. Zola was a talented player, but I think an enigmatic one, a player of moments. I think Hazard's consistency really is actually quite underappreciated. So, I mean, yeah, not a Chelsea fan, but I'd have Hazard streaks out of Zola, really. Good Lord. Well, my dad is a Chelsea fan and he's two favourite players of Zola and Hazard. Right. That doesn't help us, Duncan. Well, well. Excellent. All right, then. There you go. Eden Hazard, much missed, but glad he had as good a time as we did watching him. let's get an answer to our quiz question which was who are the only two Belgian players to ever score in a Champions League final Michael has one who is it Michael I think I've got one he's one Carrasco Yannick Carrasco yes yes of Atletico Madrid is the other Divock Origi oh there you go that was easy enough you had those didn't you Matt I had thought of Origi actually but we could have been here for a long time before it got to Yannick Carrasco right Right.

56:24Well, it would have been a fun time. But many, many thanks for being with us today anyway, Matt, and sharing those memories of yourself and Eden. Many thanks to you as well, Duncan and Michael. Totally Extra returns next week in which we'll be talking about a team called Fulham. What, have we done all the other Premier League clubs? No, it was a really remarkable time when Roy Hodgson was their manager and they pulled off something which is kind of Leicester winning the title-esque almost or almost pulled it off anyway. A mad time on the banks of the Thames. Perhaps the only fan base that doesn't rate Eden Hazard as well.

57:04I don't know. Why? Did you do something against Fulham? They're upset. They don't like Chelsea do they get very upset. They're a polite bunch though. Anyway, that's it for today's Totally Extra. Many thanks for being with us. Thanks to producer Charlie as well and producer Jesse for now from all of us here. It's goodbye.

57:24you've been listening to the totally football show part of the athletic fc podcast network for more great podcasts just like this one including the athletic fc and our dedicated club podcasts search for the athletic on apple spotify and all the usual places we're also at the totally football show on insta and at the totally show on youtube the totally football show is an athletic media company production

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