REAL READY TO MOVE FOR HAZARD
Madrid’s interest in Chelsea star goes way back but finally they’re poised to pounce
EDEN Hazard’s move to Real Madrid has been dubbed the “Courtois Plan” in Spain with the player running down his contract under assurances from the Spanish club that they will do everything they can to make a transfer happen.
Madrid know it will take more than the £35 million they paid to bring in Thibaut Courtois but are also confident that for a player in the final year of his contract, as Hazard will be next summer, they will not have to pay £100m to bring in the 28-year-old Belgium international.
Madrid will want to negotiate. Just as Mateo Kovacic signed on loan for Chelsea last summer and Courtois made the move in the opposite direction, this time players such as Isco and even Marco Asensio could be on the bargaining table.
Madrid’s interest in Hazard goes back to 2017 when it was suggested the player was shown around the club’s Valdebebas training ground ahead of a possible move.
Kylian Mbappe eventually replaced Hazard as the priority for Madrid.
As Football Leaks claimed a year later, they bid €180m for the player that summer only to then see him move to Paris Saint-Germain.
In 2018, Hazard was again the target but it was made clear to Real that with the Neymar to PSG and subsequent Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona deals still fresh in the memory, Chelsea would not discuss a sale for anything less than €200m.
This summer, Hazard’s situation will be different.
His ongoing public shows of affection towards Madrid and Real’s private openness to signing him all point to the saga reaching its conclusion in 2019.
As ever, Madrid’s summer plans will be at the mercy of how their season ends.
The post-season expenditure will increase in line with how badly they do.
Their season was heading for meltdown before the end of the year but they are still in three competitions and have been revived by Santiago Solari.
Regardless of how trophy-laden they finish the year, they will prioritise the signing of Hazard. He will not be edged out by a move for Neymar as he was in 2017 by the desire to sign Mbappe.
That does not mean Madrid will not then subsequently move for Neymar too, if their predicament demands it and they continue to believe he can be brought back to Spain for little over €200m.
For Hazard, life at Madrid will be very different to Chelsea.
Brazilian Vinicius Jr, 18, has been outstanding this season in Hazard’s favoured left-sided forward berth.
The Belgian would have to fight for his place and even more so if Madrid also signed Neymar and kept Gareth Bale, who, for all the campaigns in favour of his sale, has a contract until 2022.
He will also have to get used to not being the biggest drawcard in the squad. But that is unlikely to put Hazard off the move.
“My father always told me that I’m too selfless and maybe it’s true,” the Belgian international said in the build up to last season’s FA Cup final.
And that kind of willingness to take a back seat will not necessarily count against him.
| Daily Mail