Search icon

Football

06th Dec 2014

Eden Hazard is a much better dribbler than Lionel Messi… this season at least

Chelsea man is Europe's most successful dribbler

Conan Doherty

Eden Hazard just keeps getting better.

It turns out it’s not just a game of FIFA 15 that Messi and the Chelsea star are going head-to-head over, they’re also trading blows with their on-field performances too.

And, whilst the Argentine skipper might well have been nominated into the Ballon d’Or final three this week, he’s currently lagging behind Hazard when it comes to the art of dribbling so far this season.

French magazine, L’Equipe, have released some interesting Opta stats that pit some of Europe’s finest ball-runners against each other.  And, even though Messi has attempted 17 more dribbles than his Belgian counterpart, he’s completed 14 less.

Hazard flies the flag for dribblers in this continent having completed a superb 64 per cent of his dribbles whereas the Barcelona legend has seen just 42 per cent of his successful this term.

Bayer Levurkusen’s Karim Bellarabi has currently tried out the most runs with possession whilst the most interesting name in these lists is Marseille’s defensive midfielder Giannelli Imbula who is currently the French league’s best dribbler.

Here is a list of who has attempted the most dribbles so far in Europe.

 

Dribbling stats `1

 

And here is the important one, the ones that actually were completed.

Dribbling stats `2

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10