Decades later, director Uli Hoeness highlighted in the press what he considered to be the "knowledge gap" of the players. At that time, his Bayern Munich team had just lost a match, and the tabloids published pictures of Bayern players enjoying crayfish in a fancy restaurant. Hoeness was annoyed. Oliver Kahn protested: if Hoeness thought that not eating crayfish would help him win, that was his business. Hoeness commented in the press: "Players don't realize that football is a tough job. Training and playing football is hard work."
REUTERS - GRAPHICS: MINH TUONG
In short, is football a game or a job, an art form or even a matter of survival? Of course, it depends on the perspective, and also on the specific circumstances. It is a good topic that has existed for hundreds of years. The boy Edson, who the world later called the king of football Pele, cried bitterly when Brazil lost to Uruguay in the match that decided the 1950 World Cup championship. Right in that event, the boy Garrincha, who later wrote in books and newspapers that Brazilians admired more than Pele, was just calmly fishing and wondering why people could cry over a football match!
In football, there are famous players who play first for their own joy, of which Johan Cruyff is a model. There are stars who play for the audience, such as Michel Platini. There are also players who play for... the coaching staff. It's very simple: how to get a good score from the head coach and that's it. A typical example of this model is Uli Hoeness in the 1970s, and then when he sat in the director's chair, he emphasized that football is hard work. In the past, football salaries were not too high, so each person played football according to his own perspective and purpose. Now, in a period when transfer contracts can easily reach 100 million euros, salaries are calculated weekly, equal to the annual salary in other professions, then football is obviously an important profession, a business in the vast majority of cases.
Except Eden Hazard!
Eden Hazard is one of the biggest stars in Belgian football history, a former Chelsea player, sold to Real Madrid for 100 million euros. He receives a salary of 400,000 euros/week, according to a contract that expires in June 2024. But now, Hazard has announced his retirement, nearly a year after leaving the Belgian national team, and about 3 months after agreeing to end his contract with Real early. At the age of 32, Hazard no longer feels the joy of playing football. It's that simple. Remember: a year of "not playing" for Hazard can also bring him tens of millions of euros, according to the signed contract!
Anyone who watches football knows Hazard's technical level, creativity, skill and vision on the pitch, and needs no introduction. He is one of the best players in the world in his generation. But Hazard plays football first and foremost for fun. His salary of tens of millions of euros a year is a worthy reward, rather than the goal that Hazard aims for when playing football. He sees winning as more important than money, and the joy of playing football as more important than winning. Informants close to Hazard's teams have always admitted: he doesn't practice much. He doesn't like to practice, and has never been enthusiastic about the concept of hard training.
Has Hazard lost his form and his time since moving to Real? Yes. But the problem here is that he no longer has the emotions and joy to play football anymore. Instead of trying to practice to regain his form, he announced his retirement. That is a decision that deserves respect. And that is a rare way of thinking that remains from a famous school in the old football era: playing football for fun.
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