Zidane: “Hazard is happy and his teammates are happy for him”

Real Madrid earned their most comfortable victory of the season so far on Saturday, defeating Huesca 4-1. It was Eden Hazard who scored the opener and Zinedine Zidane was asked about the Belgian in his post-match press conference.

The coach said: “I’m happy with his performance. He played 20 minutes the other day and today he started and played a little more. We know the quality he has. He scored a good goal and it was important because the match was different after that. He doesn’t have any pain and he’s happy about his goal. His teammates are happy for him. With this win and with four goals scored, we have to be content with today’s work.”

Zidane was then asked if he believes that Hazard and Vinícius can play together, considering this was a major talking point at the start of last season too. “Eden plays on the left and Vinícius’ preferred position is also on the left, so we’ll have to see,” he replied.

Another player who came up was Fede Valverde, who is now Real Madrid’s second-top scorer behind Karim Benzema. “We’re not surprised by what he’s doing,” Zidane said. “I’m happy that he is scoring. It’s not his main role, but it’s also important that he’s scoring.”

Finally, the coach was asked about the Inter game on Tuesday and was asked if he was already thinking about that fixture when he decided to take off some of his starters once Real Madrid had raced into a comfortable lead against Huesca. He replied: “We had to make changes, but we weren’t thinking about Tuesday’s match. We need to rest well and we’ll see how to prepare for that game. But, for now, we have to enjoy these three points.”