Peppi85

It isn't surprising Eden was much improved in the 2nd half once we started playing football. There's a common misconception about him being a counter-attacking player which is far from reality. He loves getting as much touches of the ball as possible & combining with teammates. Put him in a team like Barca, Madrid, City, Arsenal, Bayern, PSG & he'd go up about 2/3 levels.

He was at the heart of our two best chances (the wrongly disallowed Ramires goal & the chance he obviously should've scored from). Ridiculous to kneejerk because of one missed chance as if the MoTM didn't miss about 4/5 better ones. Football fans are so fickle.

Hazard is named vice-captain for Belgium by trainer Wilmots.
Kompany remains captain, but Hazard is suprisingly named vice-captain.
Wilmots wants to give more responsibilities to him in the national team.
This Sunday, Belgium plays France in a friendly for which Kompany is banned.
If Hazard plays, it will be his first time as captain.
(Sporza.be)

And then there's his amazing first touch and overall ball control, his excellent link-up play, his ability to keep the ball under pressure, his comfort and ability to cause damage in the tightest of spaces, his ability to turn away from his marker with his first touch to create space and time for himself on the ball and move forward. And there's still plenty of room for improvement for Hazard.
That last part might not sound very important to some but it is. Why? Because it allows him to receive the ball with his back to goal. Most players are forced to either control the ball and pass it back, or pass it back immediately, whenever they receive the ball with their back to goal with a marker close behind them. This makes you a lot easier to defend. A defender does not know whether to mark a player like Hazard tightly or loosely. And when he does turn away directly, they're often forced to foul him. His awareness of his surroundings and speed of thought is incredible. Compare this to Fabregas for example, who often has to drop very deep to receive the ball, so he's unmarked and can turn his face to goal. Willian can't do it either.
It's a very special skill, and it's these kind of abilities that make the simple use of stats (not even stats, just goals and assists) to asses the quality of a player idiotic.

? There are some people saying Hazard will never get close to Messi and CR and even after them he wont have chance to be best in world unless he starts scoring much more goals.
The point is that you dont need goals or assists to be the best in world. Top scorer yes, but goals arent all.
Take a look at CR. All those goals and he only got one la liga title with real madrid. And CL that he played absolute crap in final.
I for one dont realy give shit about how many goals certain player scores. I value team work and team contribution over individual stats. Here, Hazard is excelling and that gives him big chance to be best in world once.
But people value goals over that and thats whats bothering me. Hazard even if he has 10 goals 10 assists every year, but keeps improving in what he does best gives him equal chance to be best one day. He doesnt need to score shitload of goals as some say.
Read last 10 pages or so, while people agree Hazard is on very top, there are also some who say he needs to score more in order to get there which is ridiculous.
And btw, Ronaldo has become one big overrated player. He lost freekick and long shot ability, he isnt great dribbler, he hides in big games and looks even more aroggant than before. Take away his countless tap ins and goals against elche etc and he is nothing special. Credit for scoring so many goals, but I hardly doubt thats what makes you worlds best. He isnt even most important player in his own team. Messi on other hand is pure joy to watch though.

Why the fuck do you need 1000 goals and assists to be considered as one of best nowdays?
Have you people watched football before Cr and Messi or you just dont realize stats are not everything?
Sure Hazard isnt on level of Messi or Ronaldo, but to say he needs better stats to be better than Suarez, Robben etc is a plain joke.

Well, those are highly debatable - hell, even Arsenal fans thought it were fouls when you read the comments. The first one is a pure foul from the other angle. The last is Cahill btw. This however is acting at a high level:


Kisses back, now go have a Jamon. While you do that check this:
http://youtu.be/UCM4b61nZpM
Boom headshot.

Skip wins.[emoji106] [emoji122]

Being a huge fan of Hazard, I have to agree with this.
Football is a very complicated game, even if constantly being falsely simplified by our dumb medias. Which leads our simple minds to sum up players to their easiest things to understand : number of goals and assists.
Forgetting so many things (mainly that football is a collective sport and can be played, as a team, in very different manners and there's no consensus over one particularly better manner), our dumb brains still want to hierarchize, individualize and say who's better than the other.
Whereas the plain truth is that it is impossible to claim categorically that Hazard is better than Sanchez or Bale or Neymar. It depends so much on the players they would play with, and the kind of football the team plays. In Barcelona, Hazard would fit right in and I actually think he would be better than Neymar. In a counter-attacking team, i'd rather have Bale than Hazard.
It depends on what criteria you favor for a player, which depends on the way you'd ideally want to play football. Claiming that someone is better is an ideological statement, and it always will be.
There's just Messi as obvious number 1, because it's so blatant that he is above everybody else in almost every aspect of the game.
Then you got Ronaldo which is a very complete player with outrageous stats.
After that, you can decide any hierarchy you want between Hazard, Robben, Neymar, Bale, Suarez, Aguero, Reus, Silva... Each hierarchy would have solid arguments depending on what characteristics you value the most.

That guy is a troll or at least an attention seeker. Read his post history.

Like I said before, you always criticize Hazard & glorify KDB...
Who missed that majestic trough ball from Hazard? Eye in eye with their second division goalie!! It looked like a ginger school boy ,who had a very bad day! But cause he's flemish he doesn't get any stick? His comments after the match, like he couldn't give a damn!! If Eden made those he would get slaughtered!
Every corner, cross was weak/to far, he bited like a youth player would do, instead of cutting off pass lines. But people see that as putting in a great shift! I see that as being plain stupid!
Hazard wasn't great, but I thought Kevin was really bad, just like probably everyone bar Lombaerts/Alderweireld/Nainggolan/Denayer.
Midfield is tooo static with Radja, Witsel & Fellaini. What about playin with a number 10 Willie?!!
No movement around Hazard means he can't play to his standards, despite his dribbling he's a team player! If his dribbles don't succeed, they say he only plays for himself... (in Belgium)
That's why I wanna see him play in Bayern or Barca one day. (or bring Guardiola to Chelsea plz)
I'm so frustrated with all those people that just don't know sh** about the game... (no offense to you MC, you just need to put off your tinted glasses )

Like I said before, you always criticize Hazard & glorify KDB...
Who missed that majestic trough ball from Hazard? Eye in eye with their second division goalie!! It looked like a ginger school boy ,who had a very bad day! But cause he's flemish he doesn't get any stick? His comments after the match, like he couldn't give a damn!! If Eden made those he would get slaughtered!
Every corner, cross was weak/to far, he bited like a youth player would do, instead of cutting off pass lines. But people see that as putting in a great shift! I see that as being plain stupid!
Hazard wasn't great, but I thought Kevin was really bad, just like probably everyone bar Lombaerts/Alderweireld/Nainggolan/Denayer.
Midfield is tooo static with Radja, Witsel & Fellaini. What about playin with a number 10 Willie?!!
No movement around Hazard means he can't play to his standards, despite his dribbling he's a team player! If his dribbles don't succeed, they say he only plays for himself... (in Belgium)
That's why I wanna see him play in Bayern or Barca one day. (or bring Guardiola to Chelsea plz)
I'm so frustrated with all those people that just don't know sh** about the game... (no offense to you MC, you just need to put off your tinted glasses )

Like I said before, you always criticize Hazard & glorify KDB...
Who missed that majestic trough ball from Hazard? Eye in eye with their second division goalie!! It looked like a ginger school boy ,who had a very bad day! But cause he's flemish he doesn't get any stick? His comments after the match, like he couldn't give a damn!! If Eden made those he would get slaughtered!
Every corner, cross was weak/to far, he bited like a youth player would do, instead of cutting off pass lines. But people see that as putting in a great shift! I see that as being plain stupid!
Hazard wasn't great, but I thought Kevin was really bad, just like probably everyone bar Lombaerts/Alderweireld/Nainggolan/Denayer.
Midfield is tooo static with Radja, Witsel & Fellaini. What about playin with a number 10 Willie?!!
No movement around Hazard means he can't play to his standards, despite his dribbling he's a team player! If his dribbles don't succeed, they say he only plays for himself... (in Belgium)
That's why I wanna see him play in Bayern or Barca one day. (or bring Guardiola to Chelsea plz)
I'm so frustrated with all those people that just don't know sh** about the game... (no offense to you MC, you just need to put off your tinted glasses )

Except Hazard created the best chance of the match which De Bruyne wasted. He was by far the best player in the 1st half from what I saw. Didn't watch the 2nd half.

When you come behind in the 8th minute against Argentina and you create zero chances in a whole game with the attacking power we have, then you really suck big time at the tactical aspect of coaching. We will need to wait until the first decent team destroys us at the European Championship because our 'coach' is a tactical disaster. Who calls this guy a coach anyway? It's just a former player that does some random stuff.

Your Problem is the manager and thats it...

Hey Brits, wanna trade, Roy for Marc?

Because Wilmots is a fucking retard.

Dude, you're such a KDB fanboy. KDB plays for Belgium, Belgium doesn't play for KDB. Our attacking game was fast and varied, and Courtois didn't even have to save one ball. Stop complaining and wait for better competition to judge him. I'm quite ok with the current setup. Wilmots is the one who actually made Kevin important and made him a crucial part of the team, I don't know what you're complaining about. Did you see how much pressure we created by putting Witsel and Fellaini in more attacking positions?

You all (some) forget one hypothesis (shared by some guys on the team btw): KDB just had a slightly lesser game, while Eden stepped up. if you automatically assume this is because of incompatibility between the two, you are well primed and biased by media and pundits.
I think its BS. They have been playing and performance together since youth NT teams. Is it Wilmots? It could be something else: Hazard having a Rocky start at the NT ( eg the hamburger incident, etc), which untill now has its effects on him at the NT. It is quite revealing he broke his bad spell after having a Mou period in which he got pushed to improve, take responsability, etc. KDB had the NT as an outlet ever since Wilmots: hence confidence boost, which he has shown (he dropped form in the NT when he got benched here).
Both are awesome, but the 'we cannot play together' meme is utter BS. It will be falsified soon, now Eden AND KDB are hitting form. Eden runs 13+ km's and KDB tops it even. They both work hard and have compatible skillsets. Just because they had ' life events' interfering with form, doesnt mean they cannot do it together.

My bad, you seemed to be one.
I disagree all the other stuff though. Not that I like Wilmots and his tactics. he's a good mental coach, but tactically I don't rate him at all. KDB told sporza that they were allowed to switch flanks when they wanted too & Wilmots told that if they both were on the same flank, Witsel is smart enough to cover the other flank.
Which working role are you talking about? We played Cyprus!!
Besides, Hazard did do his "defensive duties"! he pressed high which imo is a form of active defending.

He wasn't stuck to the side! For instance, the chance Hazard created for him, he was running in the centre there...They even switched flanks constantly & both had there freedom. KDB needs more space to shine, that's why he fits the bundesliga perfectly. I think you focus too much on KDB, since he's a former Genk-player I suppose? I always get the feeling you want him to outshine Hazard for some reason...

He wasn't stuck to the side! For instance, the chance Hazard created for him, he was running in the centre there...They even switched flanks constantly & both had there freedom. KDB needs more space to shine, that's why he fits the bundesliga perfectly. I think you focus too much on KDB, since he's a former Genk-player I suppose? I always get the feeling you want him to outshine Hazard for some reason...

He wasn't stuck to the side! For instance, the chance Hazard created for him, he was running in the centre there...They even switched flanks constantly & both had there freedom. KDB needs more space to shine, that's why he fits the bundesliga perfectly. I think you focus too much on KDB, since he's a former Genk-player I suppose? I always get the feeling you want him to outshine Hazard for some reason...

Eto last year