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🚨🗣️NEW: Eden Hazard on the Doku controversy: ‘A World Cup comes every four years. Your first child comes once’ “People are acting like Doku is abandoning his country. For what? To witness the birth of his first child? Football has lost its mind. A World Cup comes every four years. Your first child comes once. There will be another tournament, another trophy, another headline. There will never be another first breath from your son. Some journalists call it ‘disgusting.’ No, what’s disgusting is a world where a player is praised for missing his child’s birth but criticized for being a father. We celebrate loyalty to a badge and mock loyalty to blood. That’s backwards. You don’t postpone the first cry of your son because a tournament is on. You don’t negotiate with life the way you negotiate with a defender. This is not a friendly. This is not a game you can replay. Your first child… bringing them into this world… it is a blessing. It only happens once. Everything else — the jersey, the crowd, the cameras — that is noise. Important noise, yes. But still noise. A man who turns his back on that moment to chase another trophy is not strong. He is empty. I have lifted everything there is to lift in this game. I know what stays when the final whistle blows and the stadium goes dark. It is not the medal. It is the eyes that look at you like you are their entire world. Let the boy go home. Let him hold his wife’s hand when it matters. The World Cup will still be here in four years. His son’s first breath will not wait for anyone. Football teaches you to fight. Fatherhood teaches you why you fight. Some people confuse the two. That is their problem, not Doku’s.” —ZackNani/ YT