The former Lille player, now in Real Madrid, wore the jersey of the Red Devils 126 times, but did not win any trophy with the golden generation of Belgium.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
We will not see Eden Hazard again with a Belgian jersey on shoulders. The star of the 31 -year -old Belgian team announced on Wednesday December 7, on the Instagram social network , which she ended her international career, after the elimination of the Red Devils from the group phase 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 Belgian elimination.
“A page turns today … Thank you for your love. Thank you for your incomparable support. Thank you for all this happiness shared since 2008. I 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 Bring the Belgian jersey 126 times, registering 33 goals and delivering 36 assists. He had celebrated his first selection in November 2008 against Luxembourg (1-1) when he was 17 years old and 316 days.
Four years after a semi-final lost cruelly against the French team during 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 did played as sixty-two games (for seven goals and eleven assists) in three and a half seasons with the Madrid team. He even spent almost all the start of the 2022-2023 season screwed to the replacement bench, in line with the three previous exercises. “I am a little in a dead end,” he recognized before the start of the competition in Qatar. After the Belgian elimination of the 2022 World Cup, Eden Hazard had expressed doubts about the future of his international career, indicating to go on vacation in order to think about it.
With the golden generation of Belgium, Eden Hazard, who also played in Lille between 2007 and 2012, has never won anything. In 2014, the Red Devils were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the World Cup by Argentina (1-0), future finalist. Four years later, they snatched a third place after elimination in the semi-finals against France (1-0), before imploding in Qatar (elimination in the first round), in 2022.
At the Euro, the Belgian number ten and his teammates had not experienced better fortune. They had been eliminated in 2016 (by Wales, 3-1) and in 2021 (by Italy, 2-1) from 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 having led 2-0.
His announcement raises other departures in the Belgian team. If goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois (30) assured that he would continue to wear the national jersey, other executives like 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.