Hitting New Heights

Following his summer move to Real Madrid, the pressure on Eden Hazard is greater than ever

- Nick Bidwell

Throughout Claude Puel’s coaching career, caution has normally been the star by which he navigates. But there’s an exception to every rule – and Puel was certainly bold when handing Eden Hazard his debut for northern French outfit Lille at the tender age of 16 years, 10 months and 17 days. Many other bosses might have waited for the young Belgian to develop further, to pick up a few more tricks of the trade with the Lille youth team and add a little more muscle. Not Puel.

He blooded Hazard at the first opportunity, sending him on as a late substitute in a Ligue 1 encounter at Nancy in November 2007.

“I’d picked him a few weeks earlier in a friendly versus Club Brugge,” recalls Puel. “I didn’t know how he would react. In the end he did some extraordinary things and performed very ably. He already had that rare ability to go past four or five players in quick succession – and, what’s more, in pressure situations.

“He would put his foot on the ball and time seemed to stop – as if he’d suspended it in order to make the best pass. When you thought he might be going up a dead end, he’d find a way out. He had this quickness of thought and lucidity.”

Lille’s youngest-ever debutant, Hazard was anything but a standard-issue rookie. Here was a kid loaded with great expectations. He knew it and so did an army of scribes, with stories abounding in the Belgian and French press of a baby genius. The hype factory was up and running in advance of his professional bow. One only has to listen to the commentary on Canal Plus TV as he waited to make his grand entrance against Nancy. “The lad who is coming on, everyone [at Lille] believes he is a future star,” declared the commentator. “Keep a close eye on him.”