Being a young player out on loan from Chelsea is hardly a guarantee of a bright future with the Premier League heavyweights. There are more than 20 such players gaining experience in leagues around Europe. A small percentage will have long careers with the Londoners, and Belgian Thorgan Hazard, 21, is impressing at Borussia Monchengladbach, where he has earned strong praise in the past six months from his bosses in London, and in Germany.
Gifted genes
Football runs in the Hazard family. Both parents played to a high level, father Thierry in Belgium’s second tier, mother Carine in the top flight of the Belgian women’s game. Younger brother Kylian, 19, is at Zulte Waregem, where Thorgan spent last season on loan. Older brother Eden has had a stratospheric career. Chelsea signed him from Lille in 2012 for £32 million (Dh177.2m), when he was 21, and he already has more than 50 Belgian caps.
Famous footsteps
“Please don’t compare me to Eden,” Thorgan said three months into his one-year Monchengladbach deal. “When he left Lille he was already world class. I need time to develop and get used to the Bundesliga.” Yet he and Eden have much in common: both are nimble attacking players, who like cutting inside from wide positions. Both crossed the Belgian-French border to serve their apprenticeships, the older brother at Lille, Thorgan at nearby Lens.
Learning curve
Hazard, who has one senior cap for Belgium, has tuned into German football rapidly. Initially he was mostly used as a substitute by coach Lucien Favre, but he has started three of the past four Bundesliga matches and is expected to be in the XI who take on Stuttgart as the German season resumes today, with Monchengladbach fourth in the table. He scored once and set up the other two goals in the 3-2 win over Hertha Berlin last month. In the Europa League, he has scored twice in his seven appearances. “He’s exciting and one of those players I would travel to watch live,” said Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea coach, whom Monchengladbach are trying to persuade to allow Hazard to extend his stay to at least another year.
Deep loss
Hazard’s next goal or assist, he said, would be dedicated to his late friend, Junior Malanda, the Wolfsburg midfielder killed in a car accident in Germany on January 10. Malanda and Hazard played for Belgium at youth level together. “He was like a brother for me,” Hazard said.
