FIFA World Cup: Eden Hazard, the most French of the Belgians

By Clément Le Merlus

NZ Herald·

9 Jul, 2018 11:31 PM3 mins to read

After France beat Uruguay in the World Cup semi-final, the French daily Le Parisien ran as a headline: "Les Bleus open the doors of the paradise". However they should avoid Saint Petersburg to become the Garden of Eden.

In great shape, Belgian forward Eden Hazard has been brilliant again in the quarter-finals. Against Brazil he became the first player in a World Cup to complete as many dribbles with a 100% rate since 1966 (10/10).

Eden Hazard completed all 10 of his dribbles against Brazil - the most dribbles attempted by a player with a 100% success rate in a World Cup match since 1966. pic.twitter.com/u5DQVbclyu
— Transfer News (@TrustyTransfers) July 8, 2018

Tomorrow morning (6.00am NZT) he will face two of his teammates with Chelsea, Olivier Giroud and N'Golo Kanté. He seems to prefer to have them in his team.

"Kanté is the best in the world at his position. If Kanté is on top, you have 95 per cent chance of winning. It's up to us to do whatever it takes to stop him from picking up the ball" says the 27-year-old to the Belgian Sport/Foot Magazine.

He also marvels at French jewel Kylian Mbappé: "I know Mbappé used to watch me when he was younger, now I watch his videos!".

'The most French of the Belgians joined the northern France city of Lille at 14 for training. And he confesses he wore a blue jersey before going to Chelsea.

"With my brothers, we have always been more supporters of France than Belgium because we grew up with '98," Hazard explains as Belgium went through a dry period between 2002 and 2014, failing to quality for any international tournament. "At the time, there wasn't the jersey of Belgium, that's why we wore the one of France".

"Because of the seven years I spent in France I feel 99 percent Belgian and one percent French, but the idea of taking French nationality never crossed my mind" assures the player.

According to As, Eden Hazard could join the Real Madrid after the World Cup. He is reportedly a plan C to replace Cristiano Ronaldo after Brazilian star Neymar and… French phenomenon Mbappé.