Chelsea and Belgium star Eden Hazard made some eye-brow raising comments on the eve of the World Cup, as he compared his nation’s potential to the potential wasted by England in years past. His Belgium-England analogy has been met with derision, support and everything else in between.
One of his supporters is teammate Kevin De Bruyne, who currently among the best midfielders in the world. Entering this World Cup, both Three Lions and the Red Devils are being viewed with skeptical optimism; as they typically are for every tournament. That’s because once again they both have loads of talent, but given their histories of not realizing their potential, eventual glory is not really expected.
“We know what we are. We are good players, we all play in the big games in England, in Italy and in Spain,” said Eden Hazard (source Sky Sports)
”Ten years or 15 years ago, you had this ‘Golden Generation’ in England but you won nothing. Now I think the fans, journalists, all of Belgium, the country just wants to win something. We have a ‘Golden Generation’ – we just want to win something now. Can we be different to England? Maybe, maybe, we will see.”
While some football fans might have been taken aback by that, Hazard is simply just telling it like it is, and you got to commend him for giving a true answer to a good question, in the manner that it was asked of him. His response is certainly much more preferable than your typical press conference pablum and platitudes.
De Bruyne, who would have won Premier League Player of the Year had it not been for Liverpool/Egypt winger Mohamed Salah shattering the scoring record, backs up Hazard.
“Everybody needs to win a trophy,” said De Bruyne, when asked about the somewhat controversial comments.
“Thirty-two teams are playing in the World Cup. There are 15 teams that are wanting to win the trophy, so 14 teams are going to be disappointed. That’s the way it goes in a tournament.
“Everyone tries to prepare the best as possible and in a tournament you need everything – a good group, good form, luck, good circumstances.
“A ref can decide a tournament, so all you can do is prepare yourself mentally, physically, individually and as a team, and hope for the best and do the job you need to do. In the end you can talk about what happened.”
Belgium are a really loaded side, as is England, but for the Red Devils their window really is now given the age of their star players. England is younger and still rebuilding/coming together a bit. For Belgium, most of their main stars are now in their prime, so this really is it.
The two nations have been slotted in the same grouping, and they will conclude the group stage of play by squaring off against one another on June 28.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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