Chelsea's Eden Hazard Is Still a Long Way from Being a Ballon d'Or Contender

Perception is everything in football.

Over the course of the last week, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard has added the Football Writers Association Footballer of the Year award to the PFA Player of the Year award he had already won after helping lead his side to their first Premier League title for five years.

This is the high point so far of Hazard’s career; he is being hailed as one of the world’s greatest players and even a genuine contender for the coveted Ballon d’Or award.

Over in Madrid, however, Gareth Bale has endured a rather different week.

The Welshman has had to deal with the disappointment of being knocked out in the semi-finals of the Champions League by Juventus before conceding the La Liga title to Barcelona on Sunday evening.

Bale’s second season in Spain is harshly being judged a failure, and he has increasingly become the scapegoat for Madrid’s crushing disappointment.

And yet Hazard and Bale have remarkably similar statistics for the season. If anything, Bale’s figures are more impressive.

Bale has scored 13 goals and made nine assists in 31 La Liga games this season, while Hazard has scored 14 goals and contributed eight assists in 36 Premier League games, which actually gives Bale a superior goals-per-game ratio of 0.41 this season compared to Hazard with 0.38.

But despite these almost identical figures, which do give Bale the slight edge, in the polar world of football, we must have a strong narrative, and so in fact Hazard is a success, and Bale is a failure.

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The truth is somewhere in the middle, and while Bale has had his obvious problems—but still performed well this season—Hazard has enjoyed a wonderful award-laden season but is still a long way from claiming his place among the world’s very best players.

Having cornered the market in domestic Player of the Year awards this season, there is now earnest talk Hazard could soon rival Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for the Ballon d’Or.

“He's still not at the level of Messi and Ronaldo, who are head and shoulders above all the other players,” his Chelsea team-mate Thibaut Courtois told RMC (via ESPN's Ian Holyman). “But Eden has the potential to get there. He's only 24 years old. He can still improve. He has the potential to be a future Ballon d'Or.”

Meanwhile, his manager Jose Mourinho recently told the Sun (via Anthony Hay on MailOnline), “After Cristiano and Messi, Hazard will be next. I don't see anyone else.”

The truth is this talk is premature and downright embarrassing.

The Belgian is a fine, fine player, but he remains a long way from elevating himself to the same level as Messi and Ronaldo.

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In all competitions, this season Ronaldo has scored 58 goals, Messi has scored 54, while Hazard limps behind with 19

That is a chasm that is unlikely to ever be closed.

It can feel wrong, almost pointless, to compare others to this freakish pair, but they have monopolised the Ballon d’Or for the last seven years, and this is the standard others must reach to topple them.

It is in the Champions League that the Ballon d’Or is truly won, and while Hazard enjoyed some good moments in the competition this season, he contributed just three goals from seven matches, compared to Ronaldo and Messi, who have each scored 10 goals. 

An overall record of seven goals in 31 Champions League appearances over the last three years also highlights that Hazard still has much to prove at this level.

Messi and Ronaldo are uniquely dominant players, capable of dragging a team along with them by the sheer weight of their incredible talent, but Hazard is more of a cog in the Chelsea team, an important and wonderful one, but a cog nonetheless.

Interestingly, a study reported by Simon Rice in the Independent found that if Hazard was removed from the Chelsea side this season, they would have seven points fewer, but still be on top of the Premier League table, highlighting the fact that while Hazard is important, he is not indispensible.

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The most obvious difference between the three players is that while Messi and Ronaldo are given a platform to perform at their clubs, and a freedom to roam and express themselves, Hazard must often sacrifice his own talents to play his role for the team.

It would be a thrilling sight to see the Belgian let off his leash more, and allowed to be more expansive, but for now he must serve the greater good of Mourinho’s supremely effective and successful tactics.

In Chelsea’s recent 1-0 win over Manchester United, it was Hazard’s surge and goal that settled the game, he was the difference, but for most of the 90 minutes he looked to be constrained in his role.

Though Hazard deserves to win the FWA Footballer of the Year award, he has never managed to create the same excitement as the three previous winners, Luis Suarez, Gareth Bale and Robin van Persie.

I must confess as a member of the FWA my own vote went to Harry Kane, whose achievement of scoring 30 goals in his first full season for a modest Spurs side I believed had greater merit than Hazard's efforts.

And so Hazard finishes the season with a mantelpiece groaning under the weight of both domestic team and individual awards, but I fear it will be some time before he is beckoned to Zurich to be presented with the Ballon d'Or.