Eden Hazard isn’t exactly a training beast, reveals John Obi Mikel. The two played together for five seasons at Chelsea. According to Mikel, Hazard is even the laziest teammate he has ever had. The Belgian attacker has now been sidelined at Real Madrid, but has caused a stir at Stamford Bridge in the past.
“I didn’t know how important training was for players until I came to play football at Chelsea,” says Mikel, who played 372 times for the Blues came out, in the podcast DubaiEye. “In football, every player wants to be in the starting line-up and they work towards that on the training field for a whole week. There is simply no such thing as giving a disinterested impression there. The only player who was an exception to this rule is Eden Hazard.”
“He really never trained!” Mikel says. “He really is the worst in that area. Hazard is the laziest teammate I’ve ever had. But then it was the weekend and suddenly he was Man of the Match. He was always a bit smart about it afterwards. Then he would say: ‘See how it’s done, guys?’” Hazard won the Europa League, two Premier Leagues, one FA Cup and the League Cup with Chelsea in seven seasons.
“At Chelsea he was eating rice porridge for twenty minutes the night before a match. He loves his food”, laughs Mikel. “But then he would go to sleep, wake up in the morning and produce in the afternoon during the game.” According to the Nigerian former professional, the players at Chelsea Hazard just let themselves be. “He was allowed to do whatever he wanted in training. When we started, he usually just stood there. At his position. And then he asked, “Will you give me the ball?” While we were like, ‘No, we’re not going to give you the ball because we’ve been running around here all along’. And then afterwards he was just messing around with everyone. But at the weekend he always shined.”