With Eden Hazard calling time on his career this week at just 32 years old following his disastrous spell at Real Madrid, here are three other legends who decided to leave the beautiful earlier than we perhaps expected them to!
Check Out: Official: Hazard Retires From Football
Goodbye, Eden!
Football will miss Hazard, but not the Hazard who struggled to find form and fitness in Spain, rather the Hazard who lit up the Premier League almost on a weekly basis during his spellbinding seven-year stay at Chelsea. It is not unpopular to consider the Belgian as one of the greatest and most entertaining players seen in England, making it even more difficult to accept that, at 32, he believes he has nothing left to give the sport.
In a statement released this week on social media, Hazard said he needed to listen to his body after injuries left him unable to rediscover his touch in Spain following a tricky start, but there is a feeling the winger lacked motivation and discipline, and that he simply wasn't prepared to work hard enough to get back his best. Whatever the true reason for his retirement is, it's impossible to not remember what it was like watching him in full flow.
Eric Cantona – retired in 1997 at 30 years old
Hazard, though, isn't the only footballer to have left the game earlier than fans will have anticipated. In May 1997, Manchester United's enigmatic No. 7 Cantona chose to retire at arguably the top of his game, bringing an end to a five-year spell at the Red Devils during which he helped the team claim an impressive four league titles. The Frenchman is, to this day, held in high regard by his former teammates and those supporters who watched him consistently produce the goods in red, with Cantona later admitting he might have "quit too young" but that he no longer "had the passion to go to bed early, not to go out with my friends, not to drink, and not to do a lot of other things, the things I like in life".
Patrick Kluivert – retired in 2008 at 31 years old
When he scored the winning goal that crowned Ajax Amsterdam as UEFA Champions League winners in 1995 at just 18 years old, nobody would have imagined that the Dutch striker's career would fizzle out the way it did. Once considered among the best forwards in European football, Kluivert's time spent at top clubs around Europe came to a premature end in 2004 when he joined Newcastle United from Barcelona, after having an earlier spell at AC Milan, as he eventually packed it all in 2008. With 40 goals in 79 games, he is still the Netherlands' fourth-highest scorer in history.
Marco van Basten – retired in 1995 at 31 years old
While football says goodbye to Hazard, a one-time Premier League Player of the Season award winner, imagine what it would have been like in 1995 when Van Basten, who claimed three Ballons d'Or between 1988 and 1992, was forced into an early retirement due to injuries! Ask anyone who witnessed his brilliance and they'll tell you that the Dutchman, who scored 152 goals in 172 games for Ajax and 125 times in 201 matches for AC Milan, was among the best players to have ever kicked a football.
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