There was a telling line in Eden Hazard’s retirement announcement that hinted at the player’s involvement in crafting the statement.
“I was able to realise my dream, I have played and had fun on many pitches around the world,” Hazard wrote. For the Belgian, having fun was a non-negotiable element of playing football, even under the intense Premier League spotlight that he found as Chelsea’s attacking focal point.
That kind of attitude brings to mind another tricky winger to have donned Chelsea’s shade of blue. Pat Nevin describes himself as an “accidental footballer” but dazzled down the flanks in the 1980s, gliding across the churned-up turf with such a lightness of touch that he barely noticed the mud-soaked pitches.
“I used to love playing football, I really did,” Nevin remembers. “The problem was that I didn’t particularly like the rest of it.”
Hazard seems to have taken the same view. “I don’t know if I’m apart,” the Belgian mused during his final season at Stamford Bridge, “I may be apart from the best players in the world because the best think about goals, assists, trophies. And I have never been like that. So yes, maybe…afterwards, in professional football, there are a lot of players like me who want to have fun.”
His career may not have ended on a high, but what an incredible player Eden Hazard was…
Easily one of the best the Premier League has ever seen! 💙 pic.twitter.com/sk0WLVIDff
— 90min (@90min_Football) October 10, 2023
Nevin detached from the macho-man world of football by attending the gigs of indie bands and devouring NME. Hazard switched off by becoming completely engrossed in his family life.
Even in training, Hazard’s mind still seemed to be back home with his three sons. Jose Mourinho would fret that he “doesn’t work much” while his former teammate John Obi Mikel remembered: “He didn’t like to train hard. While we were working he was waiting for us to finish training just standing there.”
Yet, when it came to game day, Hazard delivered for Chelsea time and again.
Two minutes into his Premier League career, Hazard provided the maiden assist of a career which would include 54 in England’s top flight alone. With just his third touch in a Chelsea shirt, Hazard pirouetted past Wigan Athletic’s Ivan Ramis in a turn so sharp it could have left the defender bleeding. His fourth teed up Branislav Ivanovic for the opener.
Jim Pate, a senior physiologist at the Centre for Health and Human Performance, explained that Hazard’s physique – standing at 5’7 but 76kg of pure muscle – gave him a genetic edge. “He’s on an equal ground in terms of mass, but because he is lower to the ground he can get up underneath the bigger guys. He becomes the fulcrum on the lever.”
Cesc Fabregas spent five years alongside Hazard at Chelsea and gushed: “When Hazard has the ball, you expect something to happen and the rest of the players come alive. I cannot say he will be the best player in the club’s history, but he is the most talented player they have ever had.”
The arrival of the Spaniard in 2014 proved to be the final piece of the puzzle in the first Premier League title that Hazard would claim. After two seasons of acclimatisation to the robust challenges that constantly flew his way in England, Hazard discovered the most consistent form of his career under the steely gaze of Mourinho.
Hazard’s father Thierry – who, like his mother and brothers, was a footballer himself – publicly announced that he hoped Mourinho would give Eden “a little more ego”. After all, his son was already a “fantastic dad and wonderful husband”.
To begin with, Hazard was chiefly scared of Mourinho. “If he looks you in the eye,” the softly spoken forward shuddered, “it’s terrifying.”
Mourinho didn’t exactly endear himself to the team’s star player by chastising his lack of defensive work rate in private and public but Hazard warmed to a softer touch during the suffocatingly dominant 2014/15 campaign. Starting every game of the season, Hazard’s Chelsea led the league for a record-breaking 274 days.
By the time Mourinho was sacked midway through the following campaign, Chelsea fans took their ire out on Hazard, labelled one of the “rats” that let the manager down. The Belgian seemed to agree, reportedly sending Mourinho a text apologising for his role in the manager’s downfall. There were no hard feelings – few have been able to bear a grudge against Hazard.
Maurizio Sarri, a decidedly different character to Mourinho but inscrutable nonetheless, admitted: “It took two or three months for me to understand him as a man and now I do, he’s a wonderful man.” Hazard directly contributed to a staggering 31 Premier League goals during his only season under the Italian. “He’s an extraordinary player,” Sarri added. “He is a strange boy but when he understands it is extraordinary.”
Sarri’s lavish praise came after Hazard’s (and Sarri’s) final game for Chelsea. Fittingly, Nevin was part of the BBC’s coverage that ventured out to Baku for the 2019 Europa League final. After watching the heir to his lackadaisical throne score two and create another in a 4-1 thumping of Arsenal, Nevin gushed: “Hazard is the most skilful player that’s ever played for Chelsea, and that’s saying something because look at the quality of players that they’ve had.”
For Hazard, it wasn’t about his legacy among the elite. “I just want to enjoy my football,” he shrugged. “If people remember me as a good player it’s fine. I hope they will! But I just try to give my best in the moment. That’s it.”
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