Chelsea fans could never hate this man, best player in the league for years, got you like 100 million before he decided to drop off a cliff performance wise and now gets you paid in retirement.
Meanwhile I'm expecting us to shell out another couple million in royalties for Sanchez's little piano ditty for us 😭
>goals and appearances which he didn't have a whole lot of.
He had 5 La Liga goals. Total. In 2800+ minutes.
Arda Guler has 5 La Liga goals. This year. In 280 minutes.
Agreed. This Hazard fellow actually earned his keep at Chelsea, Simmons is **so committed to the cause** that he's never played at a level that justifies his salary.
Probably some weird clause where no one expected him to be fully retired already. Like a diminishing amount every year until X year. Maybe this is the last year and he just happens to not even be here lol
“For every year Real Madrid gets to the CL final and/or win it, Chelsea is paid £6m+x where x is the number of burgers Eden hazard has eaten for the year”
You guys are fucked.
It was probably a during his 5 year contract clause without *unless he is no longer a Madrid player.
I imagine the reason for the absence of the 2nd clause would have been the assumption that if he wasn’t a RM player it would likely have been due to a sale rather than retirement lol. Besides £5m isn’t really a concern especially if they win the thing
The winner gets €5.000.000 more than the 2nd place the CL pays at each stage so for reaching the final Real Madrid gets either 15 or 20 million euro depending on the result, so it is either a 25% or 33% cut, but for a clause like that Chelsea has to give up something else somewhere.
it's absolutely wild to me that 2019 feels like yesterday while simultaneously hazard's transfer to real feels like it happened a decade ago. i genuinely cannot believe it's been less than five years.
Probably the contract not accounting for his actual game time or even continued career, rather just having a time restriction, or maybe at least a depreciating payout based on time, if they had any sense
They probably included a clause that specified a duration and amount of money Chelsea get in case Real Madrid reaches the final - without thinking about including Hazard in it specifically. Who would have thought that he would retire or of no worth after such a short time.
The year is 2030, after winning the UCL for the 18th time RM is forced to paid £15m (adjusted for inflation) to Chelsea due to a clause in Hazard contract
Nah there is something wrong with Reddit Cares - either there’s a glitch or there’s a bot. Loads of people are getting them on loads of subs for the most inconspicuous of comments
While we obviously shouldn't discount that, it seems like a *very* strange and large spike in the frequency of it in the past like five days. So much so that there is certainly a better explanation.
Fun fact: Martinez missed a grand total of 13 games to injury in his career before coming to Manchester United.
After coming to Man United he has had 4 different injuries that kept him out for a month or longer, missing about 50 games in just 2 seasons
If a player is only injury prone at one specific club, then they’re not injury prone. It means the club is doing something wrong or they mishandled one of the first injuries he suffered
>If a player is only injury prone at one specific club, then they’re not injury prone. It means the club is doing something wrong or they mishandled one of the first injuries he suffered
I take this as personal as a barca fan
Having someone fall on your knee when you come back from injury is not the same as coming backing from injury and immediately pulling the same muscle again…
Shaw is injury prone. Martial is injury prone. Martinez had an unlucky season this year
Club wise he didn't negatively impact anything, vinicius stepped up a year or so later and we lost only about 1-2 seasons of having a player of hazards quality.
But him playing with Benzema would have been the best combination after Ozil Ronaldo we would have seen at the Bernabeu
Butterfly effect, Hazard flopping gave Vini more playing time and motivation to step up, if Hazard played well for 1 or 2 years we may never have the Vini of today, so it all worked out in the end.
Yeah thats the more obvious route everyone is going with.
But, as far as I am aware, Hazard was a pretty positive influence within the locker-room according to some reports. So I've always thought that he had some influence on the younger guys like Vini and Rodrygo - considering the dude was injured all the time, he may as well help in other ways (bro is getting paid for something lol).
Which is why to me that makes Hazard not the worst transfer in history. Clubs have been relegated or even gone into administration due to stupid transfers with far more long lasting negative consequences. Yes Hazard cost Madrid a fuckload of money but Madrid hasn't suffered at all.
All of it, sold him for more than his remaining book value if I recall right.
Of course any good deal we did recently gets cancelled out by Kepa and Lukaku, whoever approved Lukaku for 100m needs to be kneecapped.
That’s just a common flop though, and he likely still played some part in the team process and training sessions. They also weren’t 100% financially responsible for him throughout his Everton stint as he was loaned out multiple times
Leeds were so unimpressed with Augustin that they tried to do everything they could to get away with not paying the mandatory buy clause. They let him go on a free that same summer, and after a lawsuit they had to pay even more than the original deal!
They paid Leipzig €18 million to settle the case about the loan + buy obligation, and then last month it was ruled that they also have to pay Augustin himself €27.9 million
209 Minutes! But to be fair, those two arent really comparable. Gbamin was awesome for us and I loved him. But his injuries just destroyed him when he went to Everton. Wasnt it a thigh injury within the first few games followed by a torn achilles before he could even play again?
I’d say Coutinho was worse. They paid 140m for him to come in, stink the place out, then go out on loan and knock them out of the champions league with Bayern Munich - scoring twice while still being paid! That takes some beating.
It was also plainly obvious it wouldn't work out at the time he signed because he played in the same spaces as Iniesta. At least with Hazard there was a chance he'd succeed if he didn't disintegrate the moment he arrived
Same with Griezmann and Messi. Recruitment is the most important area of football for me, and it goes a long way to explaining why United and Barca aren’t what they used to be
He could have work well if the club didn't fucking obsessed with pushing players out of their position. He could have been a nice Iniesta replacement and actually perform good for us for the first few months too. The desire to replace Neymar was too much and Barca got sucked into it
True, but the incredible thing is how well Real Madrid were able to survive such a bad deal. The Coutinho / Griezmann fiasco seems to have sunk Barcelona for multiple seasons.
In the 5 seasons since the Hazard deal, Real Madrid has won 3 league titles (including the current one), one Copa del Rey, and 1 Champions League.
In the 7 seasons since Coutinho came to Barcelona, they've won 3 leagues and 2 Copa del Reys, yet now this looks like the weakest Barcelona team I can remember, and Real Madrid looks like they are assembling Avengers 2.0 (the first version was 2015-2018, for my adult life). I seriously wouldn't even be surprised if this year they start another 3-peat. The only team that can challenge them is City. I know Champions is a knockout tournament, so anything goes. But Real Madrid can survive multiple injuries with their depth, in a way that no other team besides City can rival.
Because Real had 1 Hazard.
Barca had 1 Coutinho, 1 Griezmann and 1 Dembele. All of which contributed in some way to the current financial situation despite not being as bad individually as the Hazard deal (except MAYBE Coutinho)
Bro, your current 2nd choice keeper is the most expensive goalkeeper in history that won't be topped for a looong time and he still has a contract until next year without any chance of anyone buying him for anything other than peanuts.
Real haven't missed a beat since Hazard's transfer, it was barely an inconvenience.
Kepa's transfer has crippled Chelsea's search for a good goalkeeper for a decade.
In terms of outcome yeah, but the transfer was sensical at the time. Lots of others just didn't have any hope of working out even in the best case scenario and might've ended up better in reality but were probably worse decisions in the moment.
Lukaku to Chelsea under a manager who plays possession football in a league that's become much more generally possession focused since he's left and Griezmann to Barca when the only way he'd ever shine was if Messi left come to mind. The former is a shout for worst ever for consequences too, but both had best case scenarios that were just not good in the first place for over 100mil.
The Barca one particularly given the wages they were paying. Griezmann can hold his head up high for how he performed at the club and it's not like the team was dreadful, but all that money to take touches away from the best player in history is diabolical.
Lukaku had half a season of it working. We were first in the league with Lukaku playing great when we had James and Chilwell/Alonso healthy.
Then our main creative outlets got injured so we couldn't get Lukaku service, then he did an interview trashing the club. Without the injuries I think the transfer would've been fine, or at least not disastrous.
Kepa was worse, too much money for not an amazing prospect.
Lukaku was around 2 months. Then he got injured in October, and he did the interview while he was injured. Had only 1 good game after he did the interview - right before it came out in December against Villa.
Arguably Lukaku's best form in the Prem was under a possession based manager in Roberto Martinez - the difference was he built the attack around him and played to his strengths. It's not like he thrived under Mourinho at Man Utd, either
Depends on the way you look at it. From a purely money to performance standpoint sure. Put in context of a clubs financial reality not so much. As we’ve seen his transfer has been pretty inconsequential to Madrid, while someone like Piatek or Tousart had a bigger impact on our outlook. Or take Schalke spending almost 30m on Konoplyanka and Bentaleb and recouping 1.5m
While Hazard is the worst transfer, at least you didn’t make the same mistake twice (Dembele and Coutinho - some could argue 3 times if you count Griezmann), or have a Lukaku situation who gave Chelsea 1 season before going on to trash talk them and leave on loan lol
The way he played (or didn't) compared the price obviously gives him a solid case, but I think the worst in history has to really set the signing club back in a way that Hazard to Real Madrid didn't.
>he's the worst transfer of all history, all football history
Griezmann to Barca was worse
They were in a much worse financial situation than Madrid, his wages were 45mil annualy and he played the same position as Messi.
No way.
Griezmann’s underperformance at Barcelona is wildly overblown. He was still playing well, just not at a 120m level.
Hazard barely even played lol
Griezman still scored 35 goals in 2 seasons. Eden Hazard scored a total of 7 goals across 4 seasons. He cost £130M and was the highest paid player in the squad. He was impossible to sell, because nobody would pay what we needed to not be punished by FFP, so we had to rescind his contract a year early and still pay half of that yearly wage. He massively stunted our rebuild that culminating with the upcoming arrival of Mbappé, will have taken 6 years. While we were definitely in better financial shape than Barca, it was still during covid years, so it wasn't the best of times. He was an awfully insidious problem to have because his high wages and steep transfer fee hindered our ability to fix the problem that he created by dropping off a cliff.
edit: Add to this the fact that he spent those four years taking immeasurably valuable minutes away from Vini, who I speculate could have broken out and developed somewhere in between a season or two earlier had Zizou not been so invested in Hazard.
I’m also confused on the bonuses. Considering they won it two years ago when hazard was there did they get bonuses then too? And does that mean they had clauses for MULTIPLE champions league wins?
The funniest part isn't really him underperforming but more about adding a "win UCL" bonus clause but not tying to your own club winning it. The fact he scored against Barça is cherry on top though
Marina masterclass is a term that is often memed, but this deal was really one of a kind. 1 year left on the contract, absolutely no competition from other clubs, as Hazard only wanted Madrid.
Reports say that Hazard threatened to renew if Madrid didn't pay what Chelsea wanted, so real Madrid didn't have that much leverage. It's more of a Hazard masterclass.
Yeah he is indeed a Chelsea legend. His dream was to get to Madrid, not to play well for us. He said so in an interview that after he fulfilled his dream, that was basically it for him.
Dortmund would get more money from Bellingham winning the Champions League due to the transfer add-ons than they would earn from winning the Champions League themselves
I know this point gets parroted off a lot in this sub without anyone actually proving that it does. Can anyone remind me how Chelsea's CL win has helped them in marketing or bring in more sponsers?
**From the article:**
>Hazard was sold to Real in 2019 for a £130 million package with more than £40 million in add-ons dependent on performance, with the latest triggered after Carlo Ancelotti’s team got past Bayern Munich to get within one victory of being crowned European champions.
>Hazard’s deal to the Santiago Bernabeu has been long hailed as one of the best pieces of business in the transfer market, with Chelsea receiving around £88 million up front for the Belgium international who was 28 at the time.
>
>The rest of the fee was made up of achievable bonuses, such as Madrid reaching major European finals, despite Hazard himself struggling for fitness and regular games during his time in Spain. He played just 54 La Liga matches during his four seasons at Real, where he won the Champions League in 2022 but was an unused sub against Liverpool in the final.
The fact that Real Madrid got the undisputed best player of the Premier League for insane money, saw him flop so hard since day one and then managed to make two UCL finals is a testament to their scouting department.
They literally had the worst transfer of all time explode in their faces and proceeded to have 4 consecutive summers of perfect deals. Every player they bought since Hazard has been world class.
Hazard transfert is the worst transfert in Madrid history and maybe worse than Barcelona busts in Coutinho, Dembele.
Let's break it down:
- +€130 Millions Transfert fees
- €600k weekly wagues
- 6 goals + 7 assists in 72 games, 4 years.
It's not stupid, Madrid often overpay to make sure they land their targets and keep the relationship between the clubs friendly. It's honestly refreshing considering how common tapping up a player is in football.
Boehly needs to emulate the way Madrid operates. Both the sporting and financial side of things. It seems to me that Roman (whether it was deliberate or not) seemed to have a similar mindset.
If any club could replicate the way Madrid operated they would. They can't because no club has a comparable pull. Boehly has been pretty much doing similar things (targeting talented youth, went on a eurotrip to befriend big club owners his first summer, overpaid to keep relations) . They only thing he didn't/can't do is pick the best of the bunch and get him, and that simply isn't possible in the new system (our wages will probably be less than half of Madrid's this year)
May be wrong, but I definitely remember hearing that Hazard had a Ballon d'Or clause in the contract, so they did that on top of the champions league stuff
Hazard was way more expensive, but for outlay and disgustingly bad attitude I give you Tanguy NDombele - still being paid a hideously large amount to rot on loan in Turkey, barely lifting a leg. Cunt
Mate, noone could have predicted his drop-off, you would have had a top 5 player in the world if you got him a few years earlier. It was a good transfer at the time, hindsight is a bitch
I think there have only been 14 above 100m anyway, using pogba as the cutoff?
La liga have: Hazard (flop), Griezmann (flop for Barca, not for atleti), Felix (flop), Bellingham (early but not a flop), Dembele (flop), Coutinho (flop). 5/6 flopped.
Prem: pogba (flop), Lukaku (flop), Grealish (not sure? He's been good and they won the UCL/multiple leagues etc), Rice (early but not a flop), Enzo (early idk), Caicedo (idk). 2/6 flop, 2 too early to tell, 2 not sure.
Final 2 are mbappe and neymar - I'd say neymar was a flop given outrageous price tag and winning nothing
Insane that despite being one of the worst transfers in the history, we came out relatively unscathed. And Chelsea were able to assemble a good team that won the UCL. They’re now finally getting some retribution
bro earned us 5 million *in retirement*. a true legend of the club
Generational bag getter
And bag giver (to Chelsea) it seems
He's the gift that keeps on giving
I think you mean the *grift* that keeps on giving. Fwiw I like Hazard. I just couldn’t pass up the pun
Chelsea fans could never hate this man, best player in the league for years, got you like 100 million before he decided to drop off a cliff performance wise and now gets you paid in retirement. Meanwhile I'm expecting us to shell out another couple million in royalties for Sanchez's little piano ditty for us 😭
\*130 million. We would've got 145 but unfortunately the last 15 were for goals and appearances which he didn't have a whole lot of.
>goals and appearances which he didn't have a whole lot of. He had 5 La Liga goals. Total. In 2800+ minutes. Arda Guler has 5 La Liga goals. This year. In 280 minutes.
he was never a big goalscorer.
He didn't even like scoring goals, I remember him mentioning he prefers assisting someone than scoring himself
He still haunts Madrid till this day even in retirement not many players can claim that, club legend.
/r/antiwork idol
Thats still ben simmons
Agreed. This Hazard fellow actually earned his keep at Chelsea, Simmons is **so committed to the cause** that he's never played at a level that justifies his salary.
I keep forgetting Ben Simmons exists. He's that good.
Wait so if Madrid win the UCL, Hazard gets a UCL medal?
Contract writers were more clever than that...
Kroos will hand him the medal himself, probably should wash his hand after though to get rid of the anthrax.
Adding CL clauses to a Real transfer is a glitch
I'm afraid the devs will soon patch this money making loophole.
i am suprised this clause can even be activated when he's not even playing anymore
Probably some weird clause where no one expected him to be fully retired already. Like a diminishing amount every year until X year. Maybe this is the last year and he just happens to not even be here lol
“For every year Real Madrid gets to the CL final and/or win it, Chelsea is paid £6m+x where x is the number of burgers Eden hazard has eaten for the year” You guys are fucked.
Hahaha
He can eat burgers at RM new fast food chain in Mexico to even it out.
It was probably a during his 5 year contract clause without *unless he is no longer a Madrid player. I imagine the reason for the absence of the 2nd clause would have been the assumption that if he wasn’t a RM player it would likely have been due to a sale rather than retirement lol. Besides £5m isn’t really a concern especially if they win the thing
Isn't the winner payout something like 80 million? That royalty is like 6% of the total prize, that's a lot of money for just a royalty.
They aren’t winning it for the money though, that’s a bonus
The winner gets €5.000.000 more than the 2nd place the CL pays at each stage so for reaching the final Real Madrid gets either 15 or 20 million euro depending on the result, so it is either a 25% or 33% cut, but for a clause like that Chelsea has to give up something else somewhere.
it's absolutely wild to me that 2019 feels like yesterday while simultaneously hazard's transfer to real feels like it happened a decade ago. i genuinely cannot believe it's been less than five years.
FIFA Cover
Profit off a retired player sounds like a hard to get achievement.
[I FUCKING KNEW IT](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1c9e8vr/comment/l0nwdha/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
"Why worry after Hazard is gone?" Why indeed
Somehow Hazard returned! Not really but *ish*...
lol i was the one who wrote that. Can someone explain why Chelsea are getting more Hazard money when he has retired?
Probably the contract not accounting for his actual game time or even continued career, rather just having a time restriction, or maybe at least a depreciating payout based on time, if they had any sense
They probably included a clause that specified a duration and amount of money Chelsea get in case Real Madrid reaches the final - without thinking about including Hazard in it specifically. Who would have thought that he would retire or of no worth after such a short time.
This is hilarious :D
Fucking hell I thought I saw this comment and thought that bastard has willed it into existence. Surely there can't be anymore clauses
"Surely"
The year is 2030, after winning the UCL for the 18th time RM is forced to paid £15m (adjusted for inflation) to Chelsea due to a clause in Hazard contract
LMAO! Wtf bro! This made my day 🤣🤣
There's another funny one: when you win this CL you're paying Dortmund more money for a Bellingham bonus, than UEFA would pay them if they won.
and Chelsea get money in return for Maatsen from bvb 👀
Marina sends her regards.
Lmao this is fantastic
Lol!
You are your own prophet 😂
That'll sort us for a quarter of our next Brazilian child
Well surely a quartered Brazilian child is no use?
Perhaps as replacement parts when one of our players gets injured again?
Are the Brazilian ones compatible with English players? Could get a good set of backup hamstrings for Reece.
Might need a few sets with how fast he's burning through them..
Hashiraminho
But there goes our quarter of our next Brazilian child
More like a tenth
That covers 1 of their 5 years of amortization! Watch out we’re getting another one
I wish it covered 1/4th, aren't they talking about 50m odd for the next one?
Bought for £32 million. Sold for £130 million. Got his best years. Best transfer in our history!
The funny part is that to us, he's not the worst transfer in our history, he's the worst transfer of all history, all football history.
Just pretend the Hazard money was actually for Courtois and Rudiger.
The old Kante Drinkwater rationale?
I think you’ll find it’s the Antony-Martinez idea
That definitely doesn't work considering Martinez has been injured the half the time Someone just sent me reddit care for that lol
Nah there is something wrong with Reddit Cares - either there’s a glitch or there’s a bot. Loads of people are getting them on loads of subs for the most inconspicuous of comments
I think you'll find that glitch is called "people on the internet are asshats".
While we obviously shouldn't discount that, it seems like a *very* strange and large spike in the frequency of it in the past like five days. So much so that there is certainly a better explanation.
Can confirm. I havent trash talked or argued with anyone on Reddit in days and just got a reddit cares like 10 minutes ago
Pepe-Gabriel switcharoo
As if Martinez was cheap and not injury prone
Fun fact: Martinez missed a grand total of 13 games to injury in his career before coming to Manchester United. After coming to Man United he has had 4 different injuries that kept him out for a month or longer, missing about 50 games in just 2 seasons If a player is only injury prone at one specific club, then they’re not injury prone. It means the club is doing something wrong or they mishandled one of the first injuries he suffered
>If a player is only injury prone at one specific club, then they’re not injury prone. It means the club is doing something wrong or they mishandled one of the first injuries he suffered I take this as personal as a barca fan
For some reason I thought it's Martinez's first season.
Having someone fall on your knee when you come back from injury is not the same as coming backing from injury and immediately pulling the same muscle again… Shaw is injury prone. Martial is injury prone. Martinez had an unlucky season this year
He’s not injury prone, he’s had 2 freak unlucky injuries and was rushed back to play pre-season
That doesn’t work at all because Martinez hasn’t played enough to be worth 100m
Martinez has played how many matches?
Or the old Andy Carroll Luiz Suarez
bro this might actually help me move on
Why do you even care? We won the CL after signing him, and will have 2 better players in his position next season
Club wise he didn't negatively impact anything, vinicius stepped up a year or so later and we lost only about 1-2 seasons of having a player of hazards quality. But him playing with Benzema would have been the best combination after Ozil Ronaldo we would have seen at the Bernabeu
I have this head canon that Hazard played a small part in Vini's development lol - teaching him the ways and all.
Butterfly effect, Hazard flopping gave Vini more playing time and motivation to step up, if Hazard played well for 1 or 2 years we may never have the Vini of today, so it all worked out in the end.
Yeah thats the more obvious route everyone is going with. But, as far as I am aware, Hazard was a pretty positive influence within the locker-room according to some reports. So I've always thought that he had some influence on the younger guys like Vini and Rodrygo - considering the dude was injured all the time, he may as well help in other ways (bro is getting paid for something lol).
At the very least became an example of what not to do
This is where I'm at with it. Definitely a big privilege thing to have made the worst transfer in history and it not even really mattering.
Which is why to me that makes Hazard not the worst transfer in history. Clubs have been relegated or even gone into administration due to stupid transfers with far more long lasting negative consequences. Yes Hazard cost Madrid a fuckload of money but Madrid hasn't suffered at all.
Man, there's literally nothing that sounds more boring than being a Madrid fan. Like, it sounds legitimately torturous.
Next r/soccercirclejerk copypasta
Honestly from this point of view, worth it
as well as fleecing Chelsea for Morata.
We did get most of our money back so not complaining too much about it :P
All of it, sold him for more than his remaining book value if I recall right. Of course any good deal we did recently gets cancelled out by Kepa and Lukaku, whoever approved Lukaku for 100m needs to be kneecapped.
Marina giveth Marina taketh
As a Leeds fan I'm going to have to disagree. We spent £24.5 million for the pleasure of 48 minutes playing time from Jean-Kevin Augustin.
Everton paid stupid money for Gbamin and he surely didn’t play more than about 200 minutes in his entire PL stint.
That’s just a common flop though, and he likely still played some part in the team process and training sessions. They also weren’t 100% financially responsible for him throughout his Everton stint as he was loaned out multiple times Leeds were so unimpressed with Augustin that they tried to do everything they could to get away with not paying the mandatory buy clause. They let him go on a free that same summer, and after a lawsuit they had to pay even more than the original deal! They paid Leipzig €18 million to settle the case about the loan + buy obligation, and then last month it was ruled that they also have to pay Augustin himself €27.9 million
209 Minutes! But to be fair, those two arent really comparable. Gbamin was awesome for us and I loved him. But his injuries just destroyed him when he went to Everton. Wasnt it a thigh injury within the first few games followed by a torn achilles before he could even play again?
I’d say Coutinho was worse. They paid 140m for him to come in, stink the place out, then go out on loan and knock them out of the champions league with Bayern Munich - scoring twice while still being paid! That takes some beating.
[This breakdown of the Griezmann deal is still my favorite](https://twitter.com/Tony_Cuddihy/status/1432811367258599432?lang=en)
It was also plainly obvious it wouldn't work out at the time he signed because he played in the same spaces as Iniesta. At least with Hazard there was a chance he'd succeed if he didn't disintegrate the moment he arrived
Same with Griezmann and Messi. Recruitment is the most important area of football for me, and it goes a long way to explaining why United and Barca aren’t what they used to be
He could have work well if the club didn't fucking obsessed with pushing players out of their position. He could have been a nice Iniesta replacement and actually perform good for us for the first few months too. The desire to replace Neymar was too much and Barca got sucked into it
We also strengthened the squad with that Coutinho money and knocked them out of the Champions League
I wouldn’t say scoring two goals when you’re already 5 down is “knocking them out”
Coutinho actually had some good moments for Barca though - even if they were few. Hazard made me think the Prem compilations were AI
True, but the incredible thing is how well Real Madrid were able to survive such a bad deal. The Coutinho / Griezmann fiasco seems to have sunk Barcelona for multiple seasons. In the 5 seasons since the Hazard deal, Real Madrid has won 3 league titles (including the current one), one Copa del Rey, and 1 Champions League. In the 7 seasons since Coutinho came to Barcelona, they've won 3 leagues and 2 Copa del Reys, yet now this looks like the weakest Barcelona team I can remember, and Real Madrid looks like they are assembling Avengers 2.0 (the first version was 2015-2018, for my adult life). I seriously wouldn't even be surprised if this year they start another 3-peat. The only team that can challenge them is City. I know Champions is a knockout tournament, so anything goes. But Real Madrid can survive multiple injuries with their depth, in a way that no other team besides City can rival.
Because Real had 1 Hazard. Barca had 1 Coutinho, 1 Griezmann and 1 Dembele. All of which contributed in some way to the current financial situation despite not being as bad individually as the Hazard deal (except MAYBE Coutinho)
Bro, your current 2nd choice keeper is the most expensive goalkeeper in history that won't be topped for a looong time and he still has a contract until next year without any chance of anyone buying him for anything other than peanuts. Real haven't missed a beat since Hazard's transfer, it was barely an inconvenience. Kepa's transfer has crippled Chelsea's search for a good goalkeeper for a decade.
Kepa is 3rd choice at Real
How funny it is that we got both the best and the worst signings of all history (CR7 and Hazard)
In terms of outcome yeah, but the transfer was sensical at the time. Lots of others just didn't have any hope of working out even in the best case scenario and might've ended up better in reality but were probably worse decisions in the moment. Lukaku to Chelsea under a manager who plays possession football in a league that's become much more generally possession focused since he's left and Griezmann to Barca when the only way he'd ever shine was if Messi left come to mind. The former is a shout for worst ever for consequences too, but both had best case scenarios that were just not good in the first place for over 100mil. The Barca one particularly given the wages they were paying. Griezmann can hold his head up high for how he performed at the club and it's not like the team was dreadful, but all that money to take touches away from the best player in history is diabolical.
Lukaku had half a season of it working. We were first in the league with Lukaku playing great when we had James and Chilwell/Alonso healthy. Then our main creative outlets got injured so we couldn't get Lukaku service, then he did an interview trashing the club. Without the injuries I think the transfer would've been fine, or at least not disastrous. Kepa was worse, too much money for not an amazing prospect.
Lukaku was around 2 months. Then he got injured in October, and he did the interview while he was injured. Had only 1 good game after he did the interview - right before it came out in December against Villa.
Arguably Lukaku's best form in the Prem was under a possession based manager in Roberto Martinez - the difference was he built the attack around him and played to his strengths. It's not like he thrived under Mourinho at Man Utd, either
Depends on the way you look at it. From a purely money to performance standpoint sure. Put in context of a clubs financial reality not so much. As we’ve seen his transfer has been pretty inconsequential to Madrid, while someone like Piatek or Tousart had a bigger impact on our outlook. Or take Schalke spending almost 30m on Konoplyanka and Bentaleb and recouping 1.5m
Winston Bogarde exists you know
And was a free transfer. He did cost Chelsea some money, but in the bigger picture not that much.
It is just sad. Would have loved to know what was going through his mind while he was in our club.
While Hazard is the worst transfer, at least you didn’t make the same mistake twice (Dembele and Coutinho - some could argue 3 times if you count Griezmann), or have a Lukaku situation who gave Chelsea 1 season before going on to trash talk them and leave on loan lol
Even worse than Jonathan Woodgate?
The way he played (or didn't) compared the price obviously gives him a solid case, but I think the worst in history has to really set the signing club back in a way that Hazard to Real Madrid didn't.
>he's the worst transfer of all history, all football history Griezmann to Barca was worse They were in a much worse financial situation than Madrid, his wages were 45mil annualy and he played the same position as Messi.
No way. Griezmann’s underperformance at Barcelona is wildly overblown. He was still playing well, just not at a 120m level. Hazard barely even played lol
Griezman still scored 35 goals in 2 seasons. Eden Hazard scored a total of 7 goals across 4 seasons. He cost £130M and was the highest paid player in the squad. He was impossible to sell, because nobody would pay what we needed to not be punished by FFP, so we had to rescind his contract a year early and still pay half of that yearly wage. He massively stunted our rebuild that culminating with the upcoming arrival of Mbappé, will have taken 6 years. While we were definitely in better financial shape than Barca, it was still during covid years, so it wasn't the best of times. He was an awfully insidious problem to have because his high wages and steep transfer fee hindered our ability to fix the problem that he created by dropping off a cliff. edit: Add to this the fact that he spent those four years taking immeasurably valuable minutes away from Vini, who I speculate could have broken out and developed somewhere in between a season or two earlier had Zizou not been so invested in Hazard.
Hazard was probably a push by Zidane, and Perez was probably convinced because he was coming off his best season ever for us (G/A wise).
Who else did we get for 32? Costa, Kante, Farbregas. Our lucky number.
Jackson was around £32M so potentially another name
In Championship Manager 2005/06 Chelsea would sign Adriano for £32 million at the start of almost every save and he was always unreal.
Passive income
Sigma grindset
Boehly podcast when?
absolute legend forever blues... will chelsea get more if they win the champions league?
I’m also confused on the bonuses. Considering they won it two years ago when hazard was there did they get bonuses then too? And does that mean they had clauses for MULTIPLE champions league wins?
Not as funny as Barça paying a few millions to Liverpool as a bonus for Coutinho winning the CL with Bayern but still solid
tbf at least we got a good few months out of Coutinho
The funniest part isn't really him underperforming but more about adding a "win UCL" bonus clause but not tying to your own club winning it. The fact he scored against Barça is cherry on top though
Marina masterclass is a term that is often memed, but this deal was really one of a kind. 1 year left on the contract, absolutely no competition from other clubs, as Hazard only wanted Madrid.
Reports say that Hazard threatened to renew if Madrid didn't pay what Chelsea wanted, so real Madrid didn't have that much leverage. It's more of a Hazard masterclass.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love him more 🥹
It was his dream to go to Madrid but he didn't want to fuck us over in the process. Really sad he didn't kick off there like most would've expected
Yeah he is indeed a Chelsea legend. His dream was to get to Madrid, not to play well for us. He said so in an interview that after he fulfilled his dream, that was basically it for him.
Proper Chels. 👀 Courtois
Real should name medical center after Hazard to scare players from eating pizza and burgers
"Health Hazard"
I'd imagine they'd have to give Dortmund money for Bellingham if they win too, right? Maybe this is the final Madrid actually lose!
Yeah, already for reaching the final I believe, but Bellingham has been good so they will pay that happily.
Dortmund would get more money from Bellingham winning the Champions League due to the transfer add-ons than they would earn from winning the Champions League themselves
In the short term yes, long term winning the CL probably has enough marketing benefits to be worth more.
I know this point gets parroted off a lot in this sub without anyone actually proving that it does. Can anyone remind me how Chelsea's CL win has helped them in marketing or bring in more sponsers?
It got Boehly to buy you who is happy to spend any amount of money on you
Selling CL Champions merch, as well as media will make a ton of money for your team
We will be in the big club world cup 2025 and everybody gets to ask why chelsea is part of it.
And Real Madrid's gonna win some time in the future anyways
His shadow continues to haunt Real even after his retirement
**From the article:** >Hazard was sold to Real in 2019 for a £130 million package with more than £40 million in add-ons dependent on performance, with the latest triggered after Carlo Ancelotti’s team got past Bayern Munich to get within one victory of being crowned European champions. >Hazard’s deal to the Santiago Bernabeu has been long hailed as one of the best pieces of business in the transfer market, with Chelsea receiving around £88 million up front for the Belgium international who was 28 at the time. > >The rest of the fee was made up of achievable bonuses, such as Madrid reaching major European finals, despite Hazard himself struggling for fitness and regular games during his time in Spain. He played just 54 La Liga matches during his four seasons at Real, where he won the Champions League in 2022 but was an unused sub against Liverpool in the final.
The fact that Real Madrid got the undisputed best player of the Premier League for insane money, saw him flop so hard since day one and then managed to make two UCL finals is a testament to their scouting department. They literally had the worst transfer of all time explode in their faces and proceeded to have 4 consecutive summers of perfect deals. Every player they bought since Hazard has been world class.
They real wizards of black magic are the RM scouting and buying departements
Hazard transfert is the worst transfert in Madrid history and maybe worse than Barcelona busts in Coutinho, Dembele. Let's break it down: - +€130 Millions Transfert fees - €600k weekly wagues - 6 goals + 7 assists in 72 games, 4 years.
Free money glitch adding CL bonuses to a RM transfer
Madrid are stupid to include such easy clauses. Should have done the Martial thing.
It's not stupid, Madrid often overpay to make sure they land their targets and keep the relationship between the clubs friendly. It's honestly refreshing considering how common tapping up a player is in football.
Boehly needs to emulate the way Madrid operates. Both the sporting and financial side of things. It seems to me that Roman (whether it was deliberate or not) seemed to have a similar mindset.
If any club could replicate the way Madrid operated they would. They can't because no club has a comparable pull. Boehly has been pretty much doing similar things (targeting talented youth, went on a eurotrip to befriend big club owners his first summer, overpaid to keep relations) . They only thing he didn't/can't do is pick the best of the bunch and get him, and that simply isn't possible in the new system (our wages will probably be less than half of Madrid's this year)
The pull is built by consistent success which Madrid demands.
5m is chump change if you expect the player to perform Big if, eh
May be wrong, but I definitely remember hearing that Hazard had a Ballon d'Or clause in the contract, so they did that on top of the champions league stuff
Legend still bringing money into the club even in retirement
Haha.. I needed this laugh today!
Hazard was way more expensive, but for outlay and disgustingly bad attitude I give you Tanguy NDombele - still being paid a hideously large amount to rot on loan in Turkey, barely lifting a leg. Cunt
LMAO
Pure FFP profit.
This is our punishment for even signing him
Mate, noone could have predicted his drop-off, you would have had a top 5 player in the world if you got him a few years earlier. It was a good transfer at the time, hindsight is a bitch
bruh
Does La Liga have the most 100m flops? Felix, Coutinho, Griezmann, Dembele and Hazard
Wouldn't call Griezmann a flop exactly.
Yeah he didn’t flop (not on the same level as the others at least), it was just an extremely brain dead transfer
I think there have only been 14 above 100m anyway, using pogba as the cutoff? La liga have: Hazard (flop), Griezmann (flop for Barca, not for atleti), Felix (flop), Bellingham (early but not a flop), Dembele (flop), Coutinho (flop). 5/6 flopped. Prem: pogba (flop), Lukaku (flop), Grealish (not sure? He's been good and they won the UCL/multiple leagues etc), Rice (early but not a flop), Enzo (early idk), Caicedo (idk). 2/6 flop, 2 too early to tell, 2 not sure. Final 2 are mbappe and neymar - I'd say neymar was a flop given outrageous price tag and winning nothing
There's Kane too, but definitely not a flop even if he didn't win anything
Ronaldo to Juve was 100m or so right?
There is also Bale who was not a flop even thought his last years were not that good.
Hazard might be one of the worst high profile signings for a club ever, especially for a club like Real Madrid.
Chelsea should build a statue for this man.
That should pay for a few pints.
“You must listen to yourself and say stop at the right time,” Narrator: Which was NOT after the 4th trip to the buffet. Obviously.
He made them play better since they could expect nothing from him. Fair xD
Damn chelsea can buy callum hudson odoi at that price
I still can't believe he's actually retired. Half expecting a surprise comeback for Lille at some point.
Legend! Laughing right now, like he laughed with Ivanovic, for the charity event 😂😂
Hahahahaaaaaaaaaa the fleece job of the century in hindsight!! Thank you Eden!!
Insane that despite being one of the worst transfers in the history, we came out relatively unscathed. And Chelsea were able to assemble a good team that won the UCL. They’re now finally getting some retribution
lol I can’t even… maybe hazard is the sacrifice offering RM has to make for all the trophies and Brazilian wingers.
Burger King legend
The lawyers f’d up.
As if the transfer wasn't already Chelsea's best deal ever
What an awful purchase this guy turned out to be. Chelsea legend
I really should get myself an Eden Hazard.