Eden Hazard asserts that he was a more adept player of “pure football” than Cristiano Ronaldo.

 

Remarkably, Eden Hazard asserted that the only player who was better than him in football was Lionel Messi. While acknowledging Eden Hazard’s legacy, the Belgian also implied that, in “pure football terms,” he was superior to the Portuguese great.

The former player for Lille, Chelsea, and Real Madrid was a brilliant talent with amazing ball-dribbling skills. Hazard’s four years at Eden were not nearly as memorable as Ronaldo’s because of injuries that derailed the last few years of his playing career.

The striker, who first made waves as a promising young player at Lille, went on to become a world-class player at Chelsea after joining the defending European champions in 2012. Though he is undoubtedly among the greatest players in Premier League history, he might not measure up to guys like Ronaldo and Messi, who are at a far different level.

Eden Hazard on Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi
Of the two, the Belgian has a clear favorite.

Hazard was questioned by Goal about the skills of Messi and Ronaldo, who are widely regarded as the two greatest players of all time. The 33-year-old supported his own skills while also giving his classmates a lot of praise.

At first, he praised the Argentine wizard of Inter Miami, adding, “Messi is maybe the only one.” Though my enjoyment of the Barcelona player waned towards the end, he remains the best of all time. He can’t have the ball taken away from him.”

Most people would concur with his evaluation of the former Barcelona hero, but what will really get people talking is how he compared Ronaldo’s skill to his own:

Though I honestly don’t think so, Cristiano [Ronaldo] is a bigger player than me in terms of pure football.

Hazard took care to commend other elite players from the same era as him, such as a few of his previous Los Angeles teammates: “Neymar, perhaps. He’s no better than me after that, but at Real, you have the greatest, too, in terms of their careers: Benzema, Modric, Kroos, Kev’ (De Bruyne), they’re all football royalty.”

The top 10 players with the most goals scored other than penalty kicks since the year 2000 include superstars like Zlatan, Messi, and Ronaldo.

No one can match Ronaldo’s record in front of goal because he is the top-scoring player of all time. The fact that he began his career as a winger before switching to become an all-purpose number nine gives him an advantage over Hazard.

The younger version of CR7 utilized a straight dribbling style to go past defenses and play the game similarly to Hazard. But the Portugal international has been playing nearly entirely inside the 18-yard box for the last ten years. Similar to the subjectivity of football, it is difficult to refute Hazard’s assertions (he left the game in 2023), but the data clearly contradicts him.