Eden Hazard stated that he disliked practicing when Antonio Conte was the manager at Chelsea. However, he also stated that time was ideal for him at Stamford Bridge. Hazard enjoyed his seven years at Chelsea, where he worked under a variety of coaches including Jose Mourinho, Rafa Benitez, Maurizio Sarri, Guus Hiddink, and Roberto Di Matteo.
Eden Hazard on Antonio Conte
Eden Hazard has openly spoken about not liking to work with Chelsea’s manager, Antonio Conte. From 2012 to 2019, Hazard was a successful player for Chelsea, winning many titles during his time at Stamford Bridge.
Hazard recently talked about his seven years in West London in an interview with former teammate John Obi Mikel on The Obi One Podcast.
“I think my best time at Chelsea was with Antonio Conte,” Hazard said.
Mikel then said that Hazard didn’t like training under Conte.
“Not at all. All the week training. I was going out Saturday, I need to enjoy a little bit because I know the day after is going to be back on the training ground. I have to do something, it’s my only 90 minutes I can enjoy. You remember him, stopping, tactics, ‘no we have to do that’. Saturday was the best day for me,” he added.
Eden Hazard: "I think my best time at Chelsea was with Antonio Conte." pic.twitter.com/VvcQGMx2fE
— Vince™ (@Blue_Footy) February 19, 2024
Even though he didn’t like how Conte trained, Hazard has said before that the Italian influenced him a lot. After Conte’s first season as Chelsea boss, Hazard mentioned that he felt he got better after only one week of training with him.
“Even after a week I think I had progressed with him. But I think he’s shown not just at Chelsea but also at Juve that he’s a good coach and I think he has some good years ahead of him. There’s a lot of tactics. It’s not always nice as a forward as you have to run, defend and everything, but at least at the weekend, you know exactly what to do, you can even close your eyes and play. That’s good. We work a lot. It’s not always easy in training, there are a lot of hours of training, but it bears fruit on the pitch. We play well, we won last year. You can see that that’s the key to success: work,” Hazard said in 2017.
