Chelsea: Eden Hazard can teach Neymar how to get hacked with class

Neymar overshadowed his own performance with his attempts to sell the referee on a red card for Mexico’s Miguel Layun. All players, including Neymar, should emulate Eden Hazard’s commitment to playing football rather than play acting.

Players coming up against Chelsea and Belgium almost inevitably find there is only one way to stop Eden Hazard: hack him down. Hazard’s feet, ankles and knees endure a gauntlet every game as opponents try to tackle the ball away from his deft, lightning movements. Sometimes, they fail in a good faith effort and foul him. Other times, they skip the good faith effort and flat-out foul him.

But sometimes they are not even successful in fouling him. Hazard will not give them what they want – a whistle to end the play – so he will stay on his feet to continue pursuing what he wants: a goal. For as many kicks, toe-drags and stamps that he absorbs, Eden Hazard goes to ground a small portion of the time. He plays through the hacks until pure physics – the opponent’s body versus his – wins the day and he goes to the pitch. When he goes down, only his momentum contributes to his body position upon landing. His arms do not flare up, he does not roll several times, he does not contort himself in mid-air for dramatic effect. He goes down, winces, gets back up. Play on.

Monday’s World Cup matches laid bare the opposite approaches between Eden Hazard and Neymar. Both put in dominant performances for their teams. Brazil and Belgium advanced in large part because of what these two-of-the-top-four players in the world did. Yet whereas Eden Hazard’s play dominated his headlines, Neymar’s theatrics and poor sportsmanship dominated his.

We’ve all seen horrendous sports injuries. The sickening crunch. The limb with angles where none belong or in the wrong direction. The shrieks, the pounding the ground, the silence around the stadium. The somber faces of players on both teams.

Neymar’s movement on the ground between the technical areas was frightful. A World Cup, a Champions League season, a career all looked in their death throes pitchside.

Then you noticed the reaction from the Mexico staff. Whatever they may think of Neymar or any other player, no sportsman (hopefully no human) would have anything other than sympathy for someone in that position… if sympathy was warranted. The replay confirmed what they saw up-close in real-time. Miguel Layun made definite, questionably intentional, light contact with his boot to Neymar’s ankle. The rest was all Neymar. And within minutes, the Brazilian was back up and ready to play.

Making the situation even more distasteful is the amount of conscious gamesmanship that had to go into Neymar’s actions. He knew the referee could not have seen the contact, but he wanted to make something of it. He knew he had to oversell his reaction to provoke a VAR review. And he knew the VAR review would, if it went his way, result in a red card for Layun. Neymar worked through a process in the hopes of giving Brazil a man advantage for the remaining 18 minutes of the game.

Not once in his career at Chelsea, Lille or Belgium has Eden Hazard attempted anywhere close to the level of salesmanship as Neymar did against Mexico. Hazard would rather stay on his feet than go down in the penalty box, even if it means his shot is saved rather than taking a penalty kick. He does not play for penalty kicks, bookings or fouls. He plays for goals, and he plays with honour.

Eden Hazard averages far fewer fouls per game at Chelsea than Neymar does at Paris Saint-Germain, this despite the Premier League being the most physical of the Big Five leagues. Last season, Neymar had 26 more fouls despite playing in 13 fewer league games. So far in the World Cup, Hazard has been fouled 14 times to Neymar’s 23, this despite Belgium playing two of the most foul-intensive teams of the tournament in Panama and Tunisia.

Unless you are willing to believe the foul count reflects the quality gap between the two, something else is at play.

Hazard’s resistance to going to ground has cost him fouls and penalty kicks with Chelsea and Belgium. Despite the Laws of the Game being clear on the matter, many referees will only call a foul if the player goes down. When they see Hazard stay on his feet kick after obstruction after stomp, they assume the contact was not all that bad. If it was, he would have gone down, right?

Mexico manager Juan Carlos Osorio was unsparing post-game. “I think it’s a shame for football, we wasted a lot of time because of the behaviour of one single player. It is a man’s sport, there shouldn’t be so much acting.”

We’ll leave it to you to mull Osorio’s lack of wokeness. We’ll merely note that you would never see Fran Kirby, Abby Wambach, Mille Bright or Christen Press do such a thing. But Osorio’s intent stands. Neymar acted shamefully, dishonourably, detracting from an excellent World Cup, an excellent Brazil performance and his own excellence in victory.

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Among the many reasons Chelsea FC has to be thankful for Eden Hazard are the integrity and courage he brings to his game. Neymar, among many other young players, should learn from him.