Before the first leg against Barcelona, Eden Hazard was clearly excited. As much as he enjoys tearing West Brom defenders apart on a regular basis, the Belgian also wants to play the best in the world, understandably.
He announced before that first game that “you want to shine when you play the best in the world”, and despite playing well, he didn’t light the game up.
Certainly Leo Messi, whom he was inevitably being compared to through the game, showed how to do it, biding his time then striking with a deadly away goal.
To be fair to Eden, playing as a false 9 hardly suited his talents, even if the team as a whole performed well. In the Nou Camp Antonio Conte may well start with a striker, giving Hazard the perfect platform to show his true levels in a big game.
We all know what he can do, and if he pulls one of his truly exceptional games out of the bag, even this flawed Chelsea team have a great chance of going through.
