Was Eden Hazard the Last True Premier League Maverick? A Look Back at His Magic and Legacy
Just two years after officially retiring from the game due to years of injuries, Eden Hazard was admitted into the Premier League Hall of Fame.
This should not take away from his otherwise outstanding career as one of the most gifted and happy players of his generation.
Hazard’s 2019 transfer to Real Madrid, which cost £88 million plus add-ons and is still the club’s highest transfer fee, was supposed to put the Belgian on a stage where he had always belonged.
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However, at the age of 28, when he should have been in his prime, it would instead signal the start of the end of his career.
Hazard, like fellow kid wonder Wayne Rooney, burned so brightly from such a young age that his body eventually gave up on him.
When he announced his retirement, the athlete mentioned his 16-year career and 700-plus game total, which at 32 is staggering.
Consider that only 76 of his 635 club games were played in the Spanish capital during four years; the toll his body suffered in such a short period of time is astonishing.
Again, like Rooney, doubts can be raised about Hazard’s off-field commitment to fitness and nutrition, but in some ways, that’s what makes him even more fun and lovable in the current game.
There weren’t many finer entertainers, game-winners, or true ballers in the sport when he was at his best, both at Chelsea and Lille.
In his first full season under new manager Rudi Garcia, he quickly rose to prominence after making his first-team debut for the French team in late 2007.
He became the club’s youngest ever scorer and the first non-French player to win Ligue 1 young player of the year.
With double digits in both goals and assists for his final three seasons in France, it would only be the start of an incredible few years for the player in a city close to the Belgian border.
He won the first of two Player of the Year titles in a row during the 2010–11 season as he guided Lille to their first league championship since 1954 and their first French Cup since 1955.
Additionally, it was the club’s first and only domestic double. Fairness in the French top flight came to an abrupt end when PSG was acquired by Qatar in the summer that followed.
After an incredible 22 goals and 22 assists in the 2011–12 season, Hazard’s value could not have been better. At this point, it was more about when than if he would join a larger team in a larger league.
He was being pursued by all the top players in the Premier League, and two years prior, he famously announced on Twitter that he would be moving to Chelsea, analogous to Lebron James and “The Decision.” This was an example of the expanding power of social media at the time.
His arrival was a huge coup for both Chelsea, who had just won the Champions League, and the Premier League as a whole, which was in decline after the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo (2009) and Jose Mourinho (2007), both of whom were now at Real Madrid and fighting fiercely against Pep Guardiola and Lionel Messi’s Barcelona.
When Chelsea somehow defeated Barcelona and Bayern Munich on their journey to the promised land, they were by no means the finest club in Europe.
It would take another six years for an English team to even reach the final as Spain grabbed centre stage.
During this time, Hazard was routinely one of the few elite players in the league, the greatest player in Chelsea’s two championship-winning seasons (2014–15 and 2016–17), and the league’s undisputed showman, one of the few who caught the interest of Europe’s other top players.
His former Chelsea teammates Kevin De Bruyne (2015) and Mohamed Salah (2018) returned to the league much later; Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Robin van Persie, and others slowed down and retired; Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale departed for Spain; Mesut Ozil never reached the heights he did at Real; Harry Kane only “burst onto the scene” in 2014; Alexis Sanchez joined Arsenal that same summer.
Hazard was the one that kept you on the edge of your seat and gave the league its spark and excitement throughout it all.
Hazard hit double digits in both goal and assist columns as he did at Lille, demonstrating his magnificent play that saw him dovetail spectacularly with Juan Mata, Oscar, Willian, Cesc Fabregas, Pedro, and Diego Costa, among others.
However, Hazard’s style of play allowed him to pick up the ball from deep and carry his team (both literally and figuratively).
One of the best sights of the Premier League was the Belgian dribbling, dancing, and slaloming his way past defences.
He had a build akin to Diego Maradona’s and a backside to rival any player’s, which he used to his advantage, according to Yaya Toure among others.
With Stamford Bridge as his typical canvas, he is a true sport artist at work.
There were both team and individual awards, as well as a few amusing incidents, including when he unintentionally called Shrewsbury “Strawberry” before Geoff Shreeves gave him a spontaneous pronunciation lesson.
His final season at the Bridge in 2018–19, which followed an incredible performance at the World Cup—in fact, it was his and his nation’s Golden Generation’s sole elite performance at a tournament—perhaps best captured his standing in the sport.
Even though the Blues finished far behind both Jurgen Klopp’s team and Guardiola’s City, that season is best known for his incredible goal at Anfield when Chelsea overcame Liverpool in the League Cup. He also won the PFA Fans’ Player of the Year award.
A player who all sincere football enthusiasts could admire, but perhaps by now he was from a generation that had seen football become even more robotic and tactical.
Would these sides now allow for the walking-in-defense but electric-in-attack hazard? Sadly, the maverick has become extinct in this period. Merci Eden is all that is to be said.
