We will not see Eden Hazard again with a Belgian jersey on his shoulders. The star of the Belgium team, aged 31, announced on Wednesday, December 7, on the social network Instagram, that she was ending her international career, after the elimination of the Red Devils from the group stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. His last appearance will therefore have taken place in the last minutes of the match against Croatia (0-0), which had precipitated the Belgian elimination.
“A page is turned today… Thank you for your love. Thank you for your unparalleled support. Thank you for all this happiness shared since 2008. I have decided to put an end to my international career. The succession is ready. I will miss you “wrote the Real Madrid striker.
The captain of the Red Devils at the World Cup has worn the Flat Country jersey 126 times, scoring 33 goals and providing 36 assists. He had celebrated his first selection in November 2008 against Luxembourg (1-1), when he was 17 years and 316 days old.
A lost star
Four years after a cruelly lost semi-final against the France team at the World Cup in Russia, the Belgian captain was in distress in Qatar. Transferred from Chelsea to Real Madrid in the summer of 2019, he chained injuries and only played seventy-two games (for seven goals and eleven assists) in three and a half seasons with the Madrid team. He even spent almost the entire start of the 2022-2023 season screwed on the substitutes’ bench, in line with the three previous years. “I’m kind of at an impasse”, he admitted before the start of the competition in Qatar. After the Belgian elimination from the 2022 World Cup, Eden Hazard had expressed doubts about the future of his international career, saying he was going on vacation to think about it.
With the golden generation of Belgium, Eden Hazard, who also played in Lille between 2007 and 2012, never won anything. In 2014, the Red Devils were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the World Cup by Argentina (1-0), future finalist. Four years later, they snatched third place after a semi-final elimination against France (1-0), before imploding in Qatar (elimination in the first round), in 2022.
At the Euro, the no 10 Belgian and his teammates had not known better fortune. They had been eliminated in 2016 (by Wales, 3-1) and in 2021 (by Italy, 2-1) in the quarter-finals. Even the League of Nations, the competition established by UEFA in 2018, did not smile on them: qualified for the final phase in 2021, they were eliminated in the semi-finals by France (3-2), after leading 2-0.
His announcement raises fears of other departures from the Belgian team. If goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois (30) has assured that he will continue to wear the national jersey, other executives, such as Romelu Lukaku (29) and Kevin De Bruyne (31), have not yet spoken. Coach Roberto Martinez had announced his departure a few minutes after the elimination of his team.