Eden Hazard is reportedly not too happy at Chelsea, and Real Madrid are looking to take advantage of that in the summer.
Los Blancos have long admired Chelsea’s brilliant Belgian, and Zinedine Zidane would love to make him part of what is sure to be a big summer of spending at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Hazard’s frustration with Antonio Conte’s tactics is seen as being a big driver behind his frustration at Stamford Bridge, even speaking out after the loss to Manchester City where he played as a false nine. “When you leave the pitch you have the impression that you’ve run, but that you haven’t played a game of football,” Hazard said. “That’s a pity. We could have played on for three hours and I wouldn’t [have been able to] touch a ball.”
So what if this move actually happened? What if Eden Hazard joined Real Madrid this summer? Who would be the winners and losers of the move? Squawka has had a look and come up with a list.
Winner: Florentino Perez
First thing’s first: the big winner of this move would be Florentino Perez. From the turn of millennium all the way to the Spring of 2016, Real Madrid were kings of the transfer market. No one could play fantasy football like they could. They broke the world transfer record once with Figo, then again with Zidane, then a third time with Kaka in 2009 before breaking that record a week later with Cristiano Ronaldo. Gareth Bale was Madrid’s final record-breaker, moving from Spurs in 2013.
But since then Madrid have fallen behind. Paul Pogba’s move to Manchester United saw him break Bale’s record, and then the summer of 2017 saw Madrid left in the dust. Barcelona and PSG both spent over €100 million on Ousmane Dembélé and Neymar respectively. Barcelona then added Coutinho for €160m in January 2018, and Kylian Mbappé’s move to PSG will be made permanent for €180m in the summer. Meaning that Real Madrid will not have a single player in the top five most expensive transfers of all-time.
Signing Hazard, though? There’s no way Chelsea would accept less than €180m for their star man, so signing him would put Los Blancos firmly back into that top five spot and give Perez the prized possession he so craves.
Loser: Karim Benzema
Signing a player as good as Hazard means that he goes straight into the side, which means that someone has to come out. That someone will be Karim Benzema. The Frenchman is already having a struggle of a season, with age and injury holding him back despite his tactical importance to the side. Hazard’s arrival would knock him out of the team and put him firmly into the role of back-up.
Winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
The Portuguese powerhouse is one of the greatest players in Real Madrid’s history, but is very clearly in the downslope of his career. His performances this season are markedly worse than they were last year, but one thing he can still do is score goals. That has always been his calling card and he’s adapted his game to continue doing it even as he has aged.
With Hazard in the team, Cristiano could continue his evolution into a central goal-poacher. Hazard would be the dynamic force on the wings, using his superhuman dribbling ability and instinctive creativity to punch holes in defences and cause havoc. That havoc would then turn into chances for Cristiano to score (and he would score so, so many times) especially given Hazard’s generally selfless style of play.
Loser: Marco Asensio
The major problem with Hazard arriving at Madrid is that he’s a dynamic dribbling winger who can be incredibly effective in the final third. On first glance that doesn’t sound like a problem, but it is if you’re Marco Asensio, a dynamic dribbling winger who can be incredibly effective in the final third.
With Hazard arriving there would be yet another obstacle in the way of Asensio becoming a First XI regular, a position he’s just about managed to break into this season, seeing off Gareth Bale. But Hazard is a world-class player who does what Asensio does with more consistency and much greater reputation. No doubt Asensio would battle gamely (his performances against PSG in the Champions League show his quality) but he would see his minutes limited severely by the Belgian.
Winner: Alvaro Morata
Looking back to Stamford Bridge, one of the big winners of the Hazard sale would be Alvaro Morata mostly because the Spaniard would now become a focal character for the Blues attack. No longer would he have to play for Hazard (or be dropped to accommodate Hazard as false nine) but everyone could work to his strengths to maximise his goalscoring ability.
Loser: The Premier League
As much as Real Madrid would love to sign Hazard, the Premier League would hate to lose him. Eden Hazard is comfortably one of the best three players in the Premier League (along with Kevin De Bruyne and David De Gea) and to lose such an obvious world-class talent to another league would be a real shame.
Not only would it hurt the Premier League’s brand, but it would considerably lessen the amount of magic on the field any given matchday. Whatever else you think of Chelsea, Eden Hazard is a genuine delight to watch. All body-swerves and mesmeric control, sending defenders flying into thin air as they try to dispossess him. Imagine not being able to see that wondrous talent week in, week out in the Premier League? What a loss!