The Ballon d'Or could be back in familiar hands this year
#8 Eden Hazard (Belgium, Chelsea)
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Chelsea FC v Brighton & Hove Albion - Premier League
The Belgian has been on the fringes of the award for quite a few seasons now, but has never broken into the top three. He finished in the 19th position in 2017, with 16 votes, while last year, he finished 8th with 119 votes. This time too, the Belgian finds himself among the contenders by virtue of a fine season so far with Chelsea.
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Much was spoken before the start of the season about how Sarri's tactics could render the diminutive Belgian ineffective. However, Hazard seems to have squashed all those talks and has enjoyed quite a fruitful season so far. He has scored 19 goals and registered 13 assists from 46 games so far. Only once in his career has he scored more goals in a season - in his final breakthrough season with Lille.
As such, it is hard to deny that Hazard is in the form of his life and it is only fitting that Real Madrid might swoop in for him in the summer. Interestingly, the Belgian is averaging 3.6 dribbles per game in the Premier League and 4.4 dribbles per game in the UEFA Europa League.
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Deepungsu Pandit
Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.
Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.
Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.
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