Hazard: “Our best years have passed”

The captain of the Belgium team, Eden Hazard, believes that the best days of the “golden generation” of Belgian football are behind usBut at 30 years of age, he considers that this group of players with stars such as Kevin de Bruyne (30), Thibaut Courtois (29) or Romelu Lukaku (28) can still give a surprise at the Qatar World Cup in 2022.

“Our best years were 2018 and at the Eurocup. But we can still do great things, especially with the players who are coming into the group. It is a bit like this mixed between young and old and we have to see what happens, “commented the” ten “of the Red Devils in an interview with the public radio television RTBF.

The selection he directs Roberto Martinez, eliminated in the quarterfinals of the recent European Championship by Italy, eventually champion, was the team with the oldest starting eleven of the tournament, with a particularly old defense: Toby Alderweireld (32), Thomas Vermaelen (35) and Jan Vertonghen (3. 4).

“Replacing the young with the old is the life of a football club and a national team. When the young come in and are good, the older come out and that's the way it is. I surely pushed players towards the exit when I was young. But if the current old ones are good, they should not be thrown out. And if a young man is better, the young man will play “, summed up the forward of the Real Madrid.

Belgium, leader of their qualifying group for the Qatar World Cup, will be measured this Thursday in Tallinn against Estonia, in the first game of the Red Devils after the “disappointment” of the European Championship, in the words of the captain.

“It's been a month or two, but it's still a disappointment. We were eager to go as far as possible, even to win the competition. We didn't make it, so it's a failure for us. But how lucky we are in football is that when we lose a game, we can try to win the next one, “Hazard concluded.