Eden Hazard speaking to Marca means two things will happen.
Uno, he’ll be asked about joining Real Madrid.
Dos, the whole thing will be used to hint at a possible Real Madrid move.
And so it comes to pass. The Chelsea player is splashed over Marca’s Friday front cover, with his answer to a possible Real Madrid move: “In football you never know. I’m happy at Chelsea, and focused on them.”
It’s really non committal, with Hazard rather more gushing when asked about Zinedine Zidane being a fan and whether that’s pleasing: “Of course it is. I remember 10 years ago, when he first spoke about me, it was incredible. Know that he was my idol when I was a child, I have seen thousands of videos of him and now he is the manager of one of the best clubs in the world, so yes, it is a luxury. But I do not want to stop, I want to continue working and striving on the pitch and then yes, I love when people like him speak well of me.”
At the side of their Hazard interview, Marca have a separate article titled ‘El eterno candidato’ which explains how the Chelsea player has been a Real Madrid target for years.
Zidane has wanted Madrid to sign the player going back to Hazard’s days at Lille, and his time at Chelsea has only served to underline the feeling at Madrid that he’s a Galactico.
Marca end that smaller article by saying: ‘Like almost everything in Madrid, the match against PSG will decide the next market movements of the club. A possible European elimination could relaunch an operation that in Madrid has never been closed, but on a long stand-by.’
Hazard is of course entitled to speak to whoever he wants, and he was talking to Marca at a sponsor event, it wasn’t as though he’d invited the newspaper to come and spend time with him, as other Premier League players have done with the Spanish newspaper.
But it was inevitably going to be turned into a transfer fuss, both in Spain and England, and Chelsea can’t be thrilled that two of their most important players, Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois, have both helped rumours gain pace this week.
