Zidane: “I can’t explain Hazard’s latest injury”

Zinedine Zidane spoke to the media on Monday afternoon, ahead of Real Madrid’s Champions League second leg against Atalanta, with Los Blancos holding a 1-0 advantage from the first leg in Italy.

Previewing the second half of the tie, Zidane said: “Nothing has been achieved yet. It’ll be a game where we need to show lots of things to go through. We can’t think that we have it done just because we won the first leg. The only thing we can think about right now is about tomorrow’s game. It’s a final, of course.”

Although Zidane wants to focus on the Tuesday night fixture, the big talking point of the day in Real Madrid land is the latest injury to Eden Hazard. The coach was asked for his thoughts about this, speaking shortly before the official injury report came out.

On Hazard, the coach said: “He won’t be able to play, I think we’ll soon release an injury report to explain more, but I can’t say more. These are things I can’t explain. I want to be positive, so I hope it’s not a big thing. Something is going on because he’s a player who had never had injuries in his career. This is new for him. We’re with him and want him to be well, with everyone here trying to help him. I urge the fans to wait for him. The fans, the club, all the players and the coaching staff want to see him play, but it’s not possible right now.”

Several more questions were asked about Hazard and Zidane started to get fed up. He replied to one saying: “That’s now four questions about this. What more am I going to say? Nothing. I’m sorry, but we just want to help him and we’ll all do that. But, truly, I don’t know if it’ll be with me or with someone else, but what I want and hope, since he has a long contract, is for everyone here to eventually see what a great player Eden Hazard is. Sooner or later he’ll make it. For now, we just need some patience.”

Finally, questioned on whether or not there is a problem with the Real Madrid medical staff, the coach said the following: “We have very competent people here, people who are close to the players every day. Then there are things you can’t explain and we’ll try to find out what is going on. But, these are things that can happen in football. There was no pre-season and there have been many matches and there are things that happen in the head. But, we have people who work here who are very good. Now, we’re getting some players back from injury.”