The 35-year-old Belgian, who retired from professional football in 2023 after a career that brought two Premier League titles with Chelsea and a World Cup third-place finish with Belgium in 2018, spoke to former France international referee Tony Chapron on Canal Plus about his time at the Bernabéu.
"I didn't want the No 7. I wanted the No 10 of Luka Modric. I thought he was going to say 'alright, take it', but he didn't give it to me."
He addressed the weight of expectation that accompanied his arrival in the summer of 2019, when Real Madrid paid over €100 million for a player who had been among the best in the world at Chelsea for six years.
"It was not a burden to succeed Cristiano at Real Madrid because, in my opinion, I was not there to replace him. It is the media who say 'he is going to replace Ronaldo'. I think I have a completely different style of play to him."
He was equally clear that the comparison was always unfair on its own terms.
"I couldn't score 60 or 70 goals a year. In my whole career I barely scored that many. My style of play was completely different. I was going there to play as Eden, not to replace Ronaldo. But, as often happens, things didn't go well."
An ankle microfracture in his first season set the tone for what followed. Hazard made 76 appearances for Madrid across four seasons, scoring seven goals — a fraction of what the club had anticipated when they broke their transfer record to sign him. The injury problems never fully resolved and he eventually left on a free transfer in 2023.
The interview offered a rare candid look behind the most expensive failure of the Florentino Pérez era, from a player who remains philosophical rather than bitter about how it unfolded.