By its high standards, Real Madrid had a wretched 2018-19 — a season some experts describe as one of the club’s worst in the modern century.
Real was knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Barcelona and the Champions League by Ajax during a disastrous two-week period from late February to early March. Sandwiched between those exits was another Clasico defeat, this time in La Liga, where it didn’t once look like a title contender. It eventually finished third in the league, managing just 63 goals in 38 games.
Real couldn’t seem to recover from the losses of Zinedine Zidane, who stepped down as manager following the Champions League triumph in 2018, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who moved to Juventus before the start of the season. Two manager sackings were further confirmation that all was not well within the club.
So, after persuading Zidane to return, Real fell back on a ploy that has served it well in the past: it splashed the cash and bought itself a Galactico.
A deal worth £89 million up front — it could exceed £150 million in add-ons — brought Eden Hazard to the Bernabeu. The Belgian winger is the second-most expensive signing in the club’s history after Gareth Bale; he is also president Florentino Perez’s first Galactico-level acquisition since James Rodriguez in 2014.
It’s a statement signing — but also one that Real hopes will provide the side a much-needed cutting edge. So just what can Madridistas expect from their latest big-money superstar? And can he prove a point of difference in the attacking third?
To answer both these questions, we looked at the last five seasons of the top four European leagues — Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga — to see how Hazard compared with the best in the business.
For the purposes of comparison, we used two metrics: goal involvement and dribbling activity. These are two of the most telling measurements of an attacking player’s output — two of the qualities managers most prize, the ability to contribute to a goal and the ability to break a line of pressure by beating an opponent one on one.
Goal involvement measures how often a footballer is directly involved in the scoring of a goal — how many goals and assists (final passes leading to goals) a player contributes over 90 minutes. Dribbling activity measures the number of times a footballer successfully dribbles past an opponent in 90 minutes. In both cases, the bigger the figure, the better the quality of the attacker.
Goal involvement
Over the last five seasons, Hazard has delivered 0.63 goals plus assists every 90 minutes (G+A/90). Of all those who have played at least 5,000 minutes, he ranks 52nd.
The top 15 are listed in Table 1 . Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez, Sergio Aguero and Robert Lewandowski have a goal involvement of more than 1 per 90 minutes, which is an incredible return.
Hazard does have a better goal involvement than Riyad Mahrez (0.56), David Silva (0.56), Coutinho (0.55), Christian Eriksen (0.55), and Mesut Ozil (0.54).
When we plot all players in a scatter diagram, with goals per 90 and assists per 90 as the axes, we get a more visual sense of where Hazard ranks ( See: The goal getters ). He is well above average in both parameters, but within this group of excellent footballers, he is in the middle of the range.
So, Madrid isn’t getting an elite player in goal involvement terms, but there are two points of encouragement for the club’s fans.
One is that his 2018-19 goal involvement was elite: 1 G+A/90, his best season at Chelsea on this metric. And two, his shots per game and key passes per game (which lead to goals and assists respectively) have steadily trended upwards during his time at Chelsea — from 1.9 shots per game and 1.9 key passes per game in 2012-13 to 2.5 and 2.6 respectively in 2018-19.
Table 1: Highest goal involvement in the last five seasons (top four leagues)
Attackers' universe
The scatter graph plots goals per 90 minutes and assists per 90 minutes of footballers. It shows players who posted above-average numbers in both measures among players who played at least 5,000 minutes in the top four leagues over the last five seasons. Among these excellent footballers, Hazard features in the middle of the range. Messi, Ronaldo and Suarez comprise the elite.
Attacking output
Dribbling activity
It’s here that the Belgian is exceptional. No one has completed more dribbles per 90 minutes in the last five seasons (min: 5,000 minutes played), as Table 2 shows.
What’s more, Hazard’s 6.2 dribbles per 90 in 2017-18 are the best-ever by any player in a single season (min: 1,000 minutes). Sofiane Boufal, last season at Celta Vigo, matched this, but couldn’t surpass it.
Hazard’s 2018-19 dribble-success rate of 61.61% is another high-water mark; Messi, by comparison, won 56.78% of his take-ons.
Pertinently, Real has struggled in this aspect. Only two players last season (Isco and Marco Asensio) completed more than 2 dribbles per 90; no player crossed 3. Hazard dribbled past an opponent 4.2 times per 90 in 2018-19, in the more physical, tougher-tackling Premier League.
Table 2: Most dribbles in the last five seasons (top four leagues)
Last word
Real has bought one of the greatest dribblers in modern-day football, albeit one whose goal involvement is solid not spectacular. But if he can build on last season’s excellent form as a provider and scorer, Real will have something special on its hands.
