There was a lot of fuss made last week when Belgian legend Eden Hazard announced his retirement from football. Well, fuss from some people and confusion from others who thought it happened years ago...

In his prime – which was essentially his incredibly successful time at Chelsea – Hazard was a true superstar, one of the greatest players of his generation and an absolute joy to watch.

He won cups, titles and awards galore during those glory years and became one of those players whose dribbling skills and sublime talent made you want to watch every game he was involved in.

But Hazard, like so many other great players, was unable to resist the draw of Real Madrid and moved there for a staggering fee at an age when he should have been reaching his peak.

He had enough talent to be one of the all-time greats. Instead, he will be remembered as someone who was great for a time

Instead, from the moment he arrived in Spain, everything started going wrong and he only made 54 appearances for Real during four years. His decline started with injuries but the main reason for his lack of game time was a loss of form that he was unable to reverse.

There was a video circulating recently which showed Hazard being told to come on as a sub for Real. He looked surprised and elated that he was actually going to get on the pitch for a change. And that sums up just how far from grace he fell after leaving Stamford Bridge.

I am sure Hazard won’t look back with too many regrets on a career that included nearly 600 games and almost 200 goals for club and country. And he won’t be suffering financially either.

But you have to say it still feels like he didn’t quite fulfil his full potential with the last three or four years of his time as a footballer – which should have been his chance to shine on the biggest stage – pretty much a non-event.

He had enough talent to be one of the all-time greats. Instead, he will be remembered as someone who was great for a time. And that’s a bit of a shame.

 

“Football snobbery”

That’s not a phrase you hear very often when talking about the sport, but which, in the context of Bournemouth, actually makes a lot of sense.

It was former striker Chris Sutton who used the words last week when discussing how the seaside club had shockingly sacked manager Gary O’Neil in June despite him keeping Bournemouth up last season against the odds. “He lost the last four games of the season but, as a whole, O’Neil deserved far more respect. There must be a lot of Bournemouth fans thinking: ‘We have got this one wrong’,” Sutton said.

The young Englishman was replaced by Spaniard Andoni Iraola, presumably because he has a more glamourous and exciting name and comes from somewhere sunny and exotic. However, while Iraola may have shown a hint of managerial potential in his fledgling career, he has absolutely zero knowledge of English football in general and the Premiership in particular. And that lack of experience is a major factor behind Bournemouth’s abysmal start to the season which sees them winless after eight games and performing like a team that is being run by a manager who is slightly out of his depth.

But while this ‘snobbery’ is sad, it is absolutely nothing new. It has been happening for decades in the English game, especially so in the top-flight where you only get the best jobs if your name sounds sexy and mysterious.

As Sam Allardyce famously once said: “The best way to get a Premier League job if you are British is to change your name to a foreign name. I have always said if I was Allardicio I could have managed Manchester United.”

And that is the truth – there is no place worse for football snobbery than the Premier League.

Or is there?

No sooner had I written that than it was announced that Wayne Rooney would be taking over at Birmingham.

He is replacing John Eustace, the man who saved the club from relegation last season and who had guided them to sixth place in the Championship this season. In the last week alone, he masterminded two straight wins, including a 3-1 derby triumph over fierce local rivals West Bromwich Albion.

So, in short, Eustace was doing a pretty good job.

But Birmingham’s American owners obviously suffer from a similar level of delusional snobbery as Bournemouth’s, albeit without the love for foreigners.

Rooney is a football legend who played at the very top level of the sport, scored bucketloads of goals on the world stage and captained his country in major tournaments. Eustace, on the other hand, spent most of his career in the lower leagues and never set the world alight as a decent, but generally unremarkable, central midfielder.

So Birmingham wanted a ‘name’, Rooney was available, and that meant Eustace was surplus to requirements.

It’s hard to say whether that type of snobbery is better or worse than the ‘foreigner is best’ one on display in the top-flight. But both make me feel rather queasy.

 

International breaks are broken

Just when we were getting back into the flow of regular domestic football, another international break is thrust upon us.

There was a time when we would look upon games between countries as the pinnacle of the sport. And in many ways, when it comes to the major finals, they still are.

But the qualification process for those finals has become so predictable and boring that it is almost impossible to drum up any enthusiasm for these increasingly annoying interruptions to regular football.

Even the prospect of a non-friendly match between England and Italy, which would once have been the highlight of the year for us Maltese, doesn’t really get the juices flowing any more.

And guess what? This break isn’t even the last one of 2023.

Next weekend domestic football returns but, come mid-November, it will all grind to a halt again for the final round of – mostly pointless – qualifying games.

It really does feel like the international football system is broken and needs some urgent attention if it wants to retain any sort of relevance in the modern world.

 

E-mail: James@Quizando.com

Twitter: @Maltablade