Does Eden Hazard need to become more ruthless to reach the level of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi?

One of football’s great under-discussed themes is that, at its very core, there has always been a contradiction that conditions the sport itself and how its very participants develop. It is a game that becomes a job, a childhood past-time that becomes an adult profession.

In other words, it is something that is first enjoyed but then becomes something to be worked on and perfected, and the two aren’t always mutually beneficial. Enjoyment can involve an indulgence and expression that doesn’t always naturally synchronise with the single-minded pursuit of success.

As part of that, there will always be those players who just enjoy playing the game and then those who just enjoy it when they win, even if there is obviously a broad spectrum in between those two poles.

It’s a little hard to say exactly where Eden Hazard is on that spectrum but it was a theme that Antonio Conte manager inadvertently touched upon when discussing his playmaker’s drive, as well as the endlessly recurring debate over whether he is the third best player in the world and what he needs to do to get to the level of Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi.

“I think that, sometimes, Eden is... If he scores one goal, he's happy and then, if there is another situation, he prefers to make an assist rather than scoring twice,” Conte said.

“I see, for Ronaldo, that if he scores once he wants two, three, four. It's the same for Messi... Eden is not selfish. He's a player who loves to play football and enjoys playing football. I like this behaviour, his attitude. But, for sure, I like to repeat to him that in every game he must be decisive.”

Put another way, it could be fair to say that Hazard doesn’t always just single-mindedly go for goal because he enjoys the multiple choices of creativity too much, of doing something different. That would chime with what those who know him best say, too.

They have described how “winning has never been an obsession” for Hazard - or, at least, that greater level Roy Keane-style obsession - because his primary interests have always been enjoyment and getting supporters to enjoy themselves. They say he simply loves it when a crowd is noticeably entertained by what he does. That, really, is what drives him.

That isn’t necessarily a concern, because it also chimes with the views of some of the most celebrated players in the game. Ronaldinho is an obvious one, because he himself would always look to eschew the obvious for a move that no one had ever thought of.

A vintage example was his own famous toe-poke strike against Chelsea in 2005, something he was said to have described at the time as a “Salvador Dali goal".

As recently as July, then, another cherished creator in Roberto Baggio told the Independent the following: “If I could try to do the magical thing, I would, but always in an effective way. If there’s something beautiful about it, it’s better. I would do what I felt like doing, what came naturally to me.

“I liked to score, but I also liked to make somebody else score. It was something that was very satisfying, to take someone there.”

“I always had that joy of the game in my eyes everywhere I played, because it was the best thing.”

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You can imagine Hazard nodding his head to all of that. Someone like Keane might agree in theory, but then there are stories of him roaring at overly expressive teammates to “cut out the shite!”

The challenge for Conte then is to manage Hazard so that creativity is honed, so he can still entertain but in a way that is incisive, so that sense of enjoyment is not lost but the player still wins as much as his talent suggests he should. Again, those who know the Belgian say they feel that is happening for a few reasons.

First of all, Hazard himself is getting older and more mature. Even someone as raucously creative as Ronaldinho, after all, enjoyed rampant success around the age of 26. He was at that age in that ‘goldilocks zone’ where talent, physical condition, maturity and experience all gloriously came together.

Secondly, it is felt that Hazard has greatly benefitted from Conte’s “playstation instructions”. The Italian gives him specific attacking instructions, and coaches him within structured team moves, but they crucially still allow enough space for Hazard to entertain and create.

That might just be the key to countering a contradiction, and getting Hazard to “exploit his talent” while also expressing himself.