Chelsea travel to Spain this week to face Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals. A clash between two of Europe’s big guns – fresh from the Super League shambles – will feature a wealth of talent and prestige, but one of Europe’s biggest stars might have to settle for a role in the shadows. Eden Hazard is Belgium’s most expensive footballer but, since his dream move to Madrid was finally realised in 2019, he has not looked anything like himself.
Hazard won the Premier League twice with Chelsea before departing, Europa League trophy in hand, with the well wishes of most at the club. A £100m-plus fee helped. Talk of a move to Madrid had dominated the press all season and his post-match comments let the cat out of the bag; it looked like the end of one chapter and the start of a tantalising new one.
Hazard’s critics have always cited his lower numbers when compared to the insurmountable Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who routinely shatter goalscoring records. This was never remotely fair, but the move to La Liga was seen as a genuine opportunity for him to demolish as well as dazzle and to turn his breathtaking performances into breathtaking numbers of goals and assists.
It hasn’t worked out that way. The dream move has turned into something of a nightmare and the former Lille star has managed just three goals in a measly 26 league appearances since joining Los Blancos. Hazard has already missed 32 games this season with a combination of muscle injuries, ankle problems and COVID-19. That’s more than he missed in seven seasons with Chelsea.
His time in London saw him winning Chelsea’s Player of the Year award four out of six years between 2014 and 2019 and he was adored by Blues fans through thick and thin. Well, apart from 2015 when – following the sacking of Jose Mourinho – he and his fellow teammates were branded ‘rats’ in a banner brandished at Stamford Bridge. Regardless, the playmaker is yet to nurture anything near this fond a relationship with supporters in Madrid.
When fit enough to feature for Real, Hazard has prompted a mixed response. At times, he’s struck up a brilliant on-pitch rapport with teammate Karim Benzema and the team did win the title last season. But the expectation from some quarters in Madrid was that he replaced the man who previously wore that famous number ‘7’ shirt and so far, nothing has suggested Hazard is capable of the titanic feats of Ronaldo.
The demand for huge goalscoring numbers has always seemed counterintuitive when discussing a player whose dancing feet bring such joy. Hazard has always played with a certain freedom and the mentality of a street footballer. Routinely the most fouled player during his time in the Premier League, the Belgian has been getting kicked since he was a boy and it still doesn’t seem to bother him.
The defining image of Hazard is of him shrugging off a strong tackle, or pouncing up to take a quick free-kick and get the game moving again. There’s no time to waste when you love the game and the seats at the Bridge were often heard in a clattering chorus as thousands jumped to their feet when he got the ball.
With a respectable 110 goals during his time in England, Hazard’s career and his goalscoring achievements could only be labelled a ‘failure’ by the strange, modern fan for whom the game is reliant on maths and metrics. If you’re crunching the numbers, you’ll miss the little magician doing some bloody brilliant things with the ball.
With Tuesday’s Champions League clash on the horizon, a lot of the focus will be on Hazard’s performances against his old club over the two-legged tie. But his time in Madrid so far has seen him handed a supporting role and that might be all we get in these games. Benzema is far and away the team’s most important attacking player and the veterans in midfield are still capable of conducting a game as and when they please.
Football is often a game of eerie coincidences and indefatigable narratives so to see the man who lit up south-west London for half a decade come back to haunt his former team would not be a total surprise, but it would be a departure from the script of his career in Spain thus far. Tuesday night offers the chance for Eden Hazard to dust off that misplaced, mesmeric talent of his and remind Chelsea what they’re missing.
Connor Spake – follow him on Twitter
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