Eden Hazard Can Shine at Real Madrid Without Being the New Cristiano Ronaldo

 ‘Hazard is a more elusive talent than Ronaldo, a less linear definition of value.’ Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian
‘Hazard is a more elusive talent than Ronaldo, a less linear definition of value.’ Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian
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Eden Hazard Can Shine at Real Madrid Without Being the New Cristiano Ronaldo

 ‘Hazard is a more elusive talent than Ronaldo, a less linear definition of value.’ Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian
‘Hazard is a more elusive talent than Ronaldo, a less linear definition of value.’ Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian

Eden Hazard’s first start for Real Madrid on Wednesday night was always likely to be a fascinating subplot for anyone who followed his progress in England.

Predictably Hazard was miles off the pace in Paris. This was his first start in a proper football match since June, and his first outing in the full white-noise glare of Champions League-issue Real Madrid.

On the UK TV coverage Glenn Hoddle winced and grimaced and wagged his head, looking as ever like the sad, kindly community support officer in a rain-soaked oilskin who knocks at your door in the middle of the night to tell you your dog has been run over.

Hoddle thinks Hazard went to Madrid “at the wrong time”. Perhaps he’s right. But then, there is no right time to go Real Madrid, except for that time you look down and discover you’re Cristiano Ronaldo. Otherwise, well, prepare to kneel, prepare to suffer.

And so Hazard struggled, stuck out on the right in a team overrun in central midfield. He played like Eden Hazard, just a bit less so. The next day L’Équipe gave him two out of 10. Mundo Deportivo used the word “innocuous”.

Watching Hazard in the stadium felt a bit different. He wasn’t terrible. He was the same, upright, scuttling, soft-shoed figure. But for me there was something else, a pall of sadness in seeing him out in all that space, exposed to that unblinking glare. Not to mention a sense of shared nostalgia, a lost intimacy that is no less poignant or tender for the fact it only ever existed inside my head and isn’t real.

These are small details. For seven years Hazard was a genuine treat to watch in England. The press box at Stamford Bridge is low down and close to the pitch. You didn’t need to look up to know Hazard had just taken the ball, the only player on the pitch whose touch was completely silent but for a slight shift of air, a whisper around the stands.

He was unusual in other ways. His brilliance came reluctantly. If this sounds like Hazard is soft, then the opposite is true. He was a driving force at the sharp end of two title-winning seasons. At times he played at a pitch beyond any other footballer in England, even the ones who won more and scored more. At others he meandered, a footballer whose own father had wondered if he might just be too nice and too normal to make it as a relentlessly high functioning machine-athlete.

There was something else too, a quality of pathos. He is an oddly affecting figure. Watch him long enough and you could see – or imagine you could see, which is almost the same thing – the things this process took out of him, the way he was feeling. It became natural to think of Hazard as some vision of sporting perfection menaced by pitfalls and dangers. Although this might be because his name is literally the word for a vision of perfection, followed by a word that means pitfall or danger.

And yes, reporting on sport can do strange things to you. I’m not proud.

You stare at these people so intently, trying not just to understand what they’re doing, but to second guess it, to drape it in meaning. It becomes all too easy to invest theory and spiralling trains of thought in people who are often quite simple, and who would look at you strangely if you tried to explain your – wait, no – quite complex ideas about exactly why this thing is happening and not that thing; that you’re not just investing this with an assumed and, arguably, quite creepy sense of intimacy.

And yet on balance it does still seem likely – don’t you think? – that I do actually understand Hazard really well. That I could, for example, have had a really good talk with him on Wednesday night during that break in play where he walked across to the touchline at 1-0 down and stood slightly away from his teammates looking lost. I could have said, look, it’s a bit like that time where you were playing out of, and when José said, and the injury meant, and the other team did.

He’d laugh and roll his eyes and we’d stand in companionable silence. Then he’d go back out and start playing a bit better. At the final whistle he’d wave up as he walked off and something would pass between us, information, understanding.

But there are some things I’d tell him. First, I’d point out that the model he’s entered is in the process of failing. This version of elite football has prostrated itself before an unsustainable notion of individualism and star power. The dynamic has been distorted, made to look idiotic and confused by the presence of a pair of outsize, freakish talents, one of whom used to wear that same No 7 shirt. It is a hunger that has yet to run its course, at a club that will continue to eat its stars.

Then I would tell him that although he’s a wonderful player this doesn’t mean he has to be that kind of wonderful player, whiting out the screen with his relentless, repeatable brilliance. You don’t have to be an obsessive, robot-level goal-lunatic to work here – but it helps!

Hazard is a more elusive talent, a less linear definition of value. It might well work out for him. The parts might still fit. But this is the real power of elite sport, the reason it still creates that strange, irresistible fascination. Failure, discomfort, struggle: these are often the most involving parts of the process. Fly, Eden. Get fit. Play inside a bit more. Most of all remain, whatever the pressure, your intermittently luminous self.

The Guardian Sport



Tottenham Hotspur Sack Head Coach Thomas Frank

(FILES) Tottenham Hotspur's Danish head coach Thomas Frank gestures on the touchline during the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)/
(FILES) Tottenham Hotspur's Danish head coach Thomas Frank gestures on the touchline during the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)/
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Tottenham Hotspur Sack Head Coach Thomas Frank

(FILES) Tottenham Hotspur's Danish head coach Thomas Frank gestures on the touchline during the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)/
(FILES) Tottenham Hotspur's Danish head coach Thomas Frank gestures on the touchline during the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)/

Thomas Frank was fired by Tottenham on Wednesday after only eight months in charge and with his team just five points above the relegation zone in the Premier League.

Despite leading Spurs to the round of 16 in the Champions League, Frank has overseen a desperate domestic campaign. A 2-1 loss to Newcastle on Tuesday means Spurs are still to win in the league in 2026.

“The Club has taken the decision to make a change in the Men’s Head Coach position and Thomas Frank will leave today,” Tottenham said in a statement. “Thomas was appointed in June 2025, and we have been determined to give him the time and support needed to build for the future together.

“However, results and performances have led the Board to conclude that a change at this point in the season is necessary.”

Frank’s exit means Spurs are on the lookout for a sixth head coach in less than seven years since Mauricio Pochettino departed in 2019.


Marseille Coach De Zerbi Leaves After Humiliating 5-0 Loss to PSG 

Marseille's Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi looks on from the technical area during the French Cup round of 32 football match between FC Bayeux and Olympique de Marseille (OM) at the Michel-d'Ornano Stadium in Caen on January 13, 2026. (AFP) 
Marseille's Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi looks on from the technical area during the French Cup round of 32 football match between FC Bayeux and Olympique de Marseille (OM) at the Michel-d'Ornano Stadium in Caen on January 13, 2026. (AFP) 
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Marseille Coach De Zerbi Leaves After Humiliating 5-0 Loss to PSG 

Marseille's Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi looks on from the technical area during the French Cup round of 32 football match between FC Bayeux and Olympique de Marseille (OM) at the Michel-d'Ornano Stadium in Caen on January 13, 2026. (AFP) 
Marseille's Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi looks on from the technical area during the French Cup round of 32 football match between FC Bayeux and Olympique de Marseille (OM) at the Michel-d'Ornano Stadium in Caen on January 13, 2026. (AFP) 

Marseille coach Roberto De Zerbi is leaving the French league club in the wake of a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of PSG in French soccer biggest game.

The nine-time French champions said on Wednesday that they have ended “their collaboration by mutual agreement.”

The heavy loss Sunday at the Parc des Princes restored defending champion PSG’s two-point lead over Lens after 21 rounds, with Marseille in fourth place after the humiliating defeat.

De Zerbi's exit followed another embarrassing 3-0 loss at Club Brugge two weeks ago that resulted in Marseille exiting the Champions League.

De Zerbi, who had apologized to Marseille fans after the loss against bitter rival PSG, joined Marseille in 2024 after two seasons in charge at Brighton. After tightening things up tactically in Marseille during his first season, his recent choices had left many observers puzzled.

“Following consultations involving all stakeholders in the club’s leadership — the owner, president, director of football and head coach — it was decided to opt for a change at the head of the first team,” Marseille said. “This was a collective and difficult decision, taken after thorough consideration, in the best interests of the club and in order to address the sporting challenges of the end of the season.”

De Zerbi led Marseille to a second-place finish last season. Marseille did not immediately announce a replacement for De Zerbi ahead of Saturday's league match against Strasbourg.

Since American owner Frank McCourt bought Marseille in 2016, the former powerhouse of French soccer has failed to find any form of stability, with a succession of coaches and crises that sometimes turned violent.

Marseille dominated domestic soccer in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was the only French team to win the Champions League before PSG claimed the trophy last year. It hasn’t won its own league title since 2010.


Olympic Fans Hunt for Plushies of Mascots Milo and Tina as They Fly off Shelves 

Fans take selfies with the Olympic mascot Tina at the finish area of an alpine ski, slalom portion of a women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP)
Fans take selfies with the Olympic mascot Tina at the finish area of an alpine ski, slalom portion of a women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP)
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Olympic Fans Hunt for Plushies of Mascots Milo and Tina as They Fly off Shelves 

Fans take selfies with the Olympic mascot Tina at the finish area of an alpine ski, slalom portion of a women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP)
Fans take selfies with the Olympic mascot Tina at the finish area of an alpine ski, slalom portion of a women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP)

For fans of the Milan Cortina Olympic mascots, the eponymous Milo and Tina, it's been nearly impossible to find a plush toy of the stoat siblings in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Many of the official Olympics stores in the host cities are already sold out, less than a week into the Winter Games.

“I think the only way to get them is to actually win a medal,” Julia Peeler joked Tuesday in central Milan, where Tina and Milo characters posed for photos with fans.

The 38-year-old from South Carolina is on the hunt for the plushies for her niece. She's already bought some mascot pins, but she won't wear them on her lanyard. Peeler wants to avoid anyone trying to swap for them in a pin trade, a popular Olympic pastime.

Tina, short for Cortina, is the lighter-colored stoat and represents the Olympic Winter Games. Her younger brother Milo, short for Milano, is the face of the Paralympic Winter Games.

Milo was born without one paw but learned to use his tail and turn his difference into a strength, according to the Olympics website. A stoat is a small mustelid, like a weasel or an otter.

The animals adorn merchandise ranging from coffee mugs to T-shirts, but the plush toys are the most popular.

They're priced from 18 to 58 euros (about $21 to $69) and many of the major official stores in Milan, including the largest one at the iconic Duomo Cathedral, and Cortina have been cleaned out. They appeared to be sold out online Tuesday night.

Winning athletes are gifted the plush toys when they receive their gold, silver and bronze medals atop the podium.

Broadcast system engineer Jennifer Suarez got lucky Tuesday at the media center in Milan. She's been collecting mascot toys since the 2010 Vancouver Games and has been asking shops when they would restock.

“We were lucky we were just in time,” she said, clutching a tiny Tina. “They are gone right now.”

Friends Michelle Chen and Brenda Zhang were among the dozens of fans Tuesday who took photos with the characters at the fan zone in central Milan.

“They’re just so lovable and they’re always super excited at the Games, they are cheering on the crowd,” Chen, 29, said after they snapped their shots. “We just are so excited to meet them.”

The San Franciscan women are in Milan for the Olympics and their friend who is “obsessed” with the stoats asked for a plush Tina as a gift.

“They’re just so cute, and stoats are such a unique animal to be the Olympic mascot,” Zhang, 28, said.

Annie-Laurie Atkins, Peeler's friend, loves that Milo is the mascot for Paralympians.

“The Paralympics are really special to me,” she said Tuesday. “I have a lot of friends that are disabled and so having a character that also represents that is just incredible.”