Burnley boss Vincent Kompany pays tribute to ex-Chelsea, Real Madrid & Belgium great Eden Hazard

The winger called time on his career earlier this month following his departure from Real Madrid at the end of last season.

A free agent, Hazard had options to carry on playing but he decided it was time to hang up his boots.

In a statement announcing his retirement, Hazard said: “You must listen to yourself and say stop at the right time.”

Hazard joined Madrid from Chelsea in 2019 for £89m, but played just 54 league games for the Spanish giants.

Prior to that, he won two Premier League titles during his time at Stamford Bridge and made over 700 appearances during his 16-year career, which started with French side Lille.

Hazard also earned an impressive 126 caps for Belgium, scoring 33 times. During many of those games he would have been partnered with Kompany.

Reflecting on the time he spent with the former Chelsea man, Kompany said: “I remember coming into his first training session with the national team, if I remember it was against Luxembourg but I was injured so the first time I saw him was Norway away in training.

"You thought ‘who is this kid? He’s way too confident’. At that time he hadn’t proven anything so in training you think ‘I’ll show him a little bit' and then in the first couple of actions, luckily not me but somebody else gets done and you think ‘hang on a second, I need to be aware of this kid’.

"Within two or three sessions I knew this player was special.

"There was a moment for me, and he knows it himself, where he was right underneath that bracket of Ronaldo and Messi. I’m not saying part of it, but what the top players have is that consistency over 10 to 15 years. It’s probably the only thing that’s missing from his talent.

"But it’s still a wonderful career, especially coming from a country like Belgium where we didn’t expect to produce these types of players and we had one of the magicians of the game.”