Confesiones de Edén Azar

He decided to reject multimillion-dollar offers from Saudi Arabia and to enjoy life. Football is no longer his priority.

This was evident in the performances he delivered at Real Madrid. After phenomenal games at Chelsea, where he spent seven years (from 2012 to 2019), he moved to Spain and did not succeed there.

He quickly encountered weight problems, couldn’t run properly, or work magic on the pitch. “I never paid attention to food and what I ate, although I didn’t eat burgers every day.

You can’t live like that for 16 years. I’m a hedonist, I like to drink with friends, to eat.

Diet is sh*t, it never worked for me,” Azar said to “L’Equipe”. “I didn’t want to play until I was 40.

Life is too short to give up so much. I didn’t want to sacrifice so much.

At home, I always had alcohol and a lot of food which, if put that way, wasn’t really for footballers. That’s how I am and I’m not ashamed of it.”

He also spoke about the decision to come to Madrid. “It’s easy to talk about it now.

I’ve been a fan of Zinedine Zidane from a young age, there’s the ‘Bernabeu’, that white jersey, a charm that others don’t have, the city is special. Apart from these things, I didn’t fit in.

It’s a huge club and I’m not like that. I didn’t like the style of play compared to some other teams.

“I wanted to do things my way and succeed, but Real is too big a club. It’s hard to play there.

Maybe I had to train more…”

He then reflected on the moment when things started going downhill, when he moved from Chelsea to Real. “I had the best season of my career at Chelsea.

I told myself ‘You are in Real now, this might be the last break you’ll have.’ I completely relaxed, I hadn’t had a break for seven years in England, we even played on Christmas.

I enjoyed the vacation, I had barbecues, drank wine.”