The ball boy naturally clutches his ribs, and a mass fracas starts, with Swansea captain Ashley Williams leaping to the defence of the boy. After a lengthy talk between referee Chris Foy, Chelsea captain Frank Lampard and offender Eden Hazard, the red card is shown to the Belgian.
The incident basically scuppers any chance Chelsea had of getting back into the game and the match peters out.
(GIF courtesy of www.sbnation.com)
Now we've got the facts, let's examine what actually happened.
Obviously Eden Hazard has no right to get involved. It was a stupid thing to do and it was not his place to do so. He is completely in the wrong and no amount of defending him will make it right. A professional should be a role model for budding footballers, and he certainly did not act like one last night.
Now we move on to the ball boy. A 17 year old lad, Charlie Morgan, son of Swansea shareholder Martin Morgan, has taken his time over retrieving the ball and felt a push from Eden Hazard, so he hits the deck. Obviously, he shouldn't have gone down. He should have just picked the ball up, and slowly rolled it towards Swansea's goalkeeper, Gerhard Tremmel. It would still have wasted time, Morgan's clear aim, but would have worked out better for all parties involved.
As soon as Hazard confronted him, something was going to happen. He should have realised that there was no scenario where he won't be viewed as the villain, and there was no scenario where he wasn't going to kick the ball boy as well as the ball.
Eden Hazard is 22 years old. Charlie Morgan is 17. 5 years isn't too big a difference, right? Wrong. It's not the age gap that makes this an issue, it's the fact that Hazard is a professional. My reaction would still have been the same, whether it be someone as young as Raheem Sterling, 18, or Eden Hazard, 22, or someone double the ball boy's age, like Frank Lampard, 34.
A professional, earning silly (or what I consider silly) money, has a duty to act like one and by kicking out simply because the game isn't going his way is entirely unprofessional. Most professionals keep their emotions in check, at least their physical ones anyway. I have no problem with players shouting at the ref in this situation, or shouting at Swansea players, or even shouting at the ball boy, but to then go and act on those emotions is wrong. Plain wrong.
This is what separates the professionals from the unprofessionals. The majority of players would have got annoyed, sure, but they would also not have confronted the ball boy. However Hazard is not in that majority, and he needs to learn to keep his physical emotions concealed whilst he's playing. Hopefully this should help him learn and grow as a footballer, as he is supremely talented and has a huge future head of him. This should not cast a shadow over his career, but if he fails to learn from what he has done, it will.
Quite frankly, the whole situation is very bizarre indeed, and I have never, nor will I ever again hopefully, seen anything like it. The only thing I will say, which is not defending Hazard's actions, is that Morgan should not have gone to ground. It was a silly thing to do and he should have, like I said earlier, just slowly rolled it back to Tremmel.
Referee Chris Foy was excellent in all of this, it should be noted. He stayed professional and didn't get involved until he had to. By the time it had calmed down the ball boy had been lead off the pitch, he called over Lampard and Hazard to explain the situation. Lampard knew what was going to happen, and despite his weak protests, he could have no complaints when Foy correctly brandished the red card. Hazard, on the other hand, looked to be taken aback but accepted what he had done and disappeared down the tunnel.
So Hazard was 100% in the wrong. Charlie Morgan was also in the wrong, but he was also pushed to the ground, so he was about 50% in the wrong. Chris Foy was 0% in the wrong, and did excellently to keep the match under his control.
