Eden Hazard says he would love the opportunity to play with Kylian Mbappe at Real Madrid and believes the France international has the potential to become one of the game's greatest ever players.
The 20-year-old Paris Saint-Germain forward has developed into one of the game’s brightest young talents since making his senior debut for Monaco four years ago.
He has won 10 major honours already during his short senior career, including three Ligue 1 titles and the 2018 World Cup with France, where he also picked up the award for the tournament’s best young player.
The star has been repeatedly linked with moves to Real Madrid, with coach Zinedine Zidane recently revealing that Mbappe's dream is to one day play for Spanish giants.
Those words frustrated PSG sporting director Leonardo , who was keen to play down transfer speculation surrounding the player.
That has not stopped Mbappe’s name frequently being mentioned alongside Real Madrid’s, with Los Blancos forward Hazard talking up the potential for a future move to Santiago Bernabeu.
“He has the talent. In a few years, he will surely be the best player in the world," Hazard told Le Parisien.
“Plenty of players can claim this title. But if he continues like this, Kylian will be one of the greatest players in history.
“A football player always dreams of playing with the best. If tomorrow I can bring Kylian [to Real Madrid], I will try. But not only am I not not the one who decides, I do not think anybody will ask about my opinion.”
Hazard also feels that current Real team-mate Karim Benzema is good enough to be recalled to the France squad.
Benzema, who has 81 international caps, has been frozen out of the squad since 2015 , part of the fallout from a sex tape dispute with Mathieu Valbuena that first saw the striker dropped down the pecking order before eventually being excluded entirely.
The former Lyon forward has maintained his goalscoring form for Real Madrid during his international exile, scoring 30 goals for Los Blancos last season and already has 12 in 16 appearances this term, developing a blossoming partnership with Hazard.
Hazard refused to be drawn on the reasons behind Benzema’s international exclusion, but believes France would be stronger with him in the squad.
"Benzema in the France team? Ah, these are French problems. Me, I can judge only on the performances. And in this area, it is not normal that Karim is not called,” added Hazard.
“And I'm not saying that to please him or because he's my partner. Karim is the best current striker. He scores, he plays for the best club in the world.
“The France team is already strong without Karim. With him, they would be even more so. [Though] for us, the Belgians, it is better that there is no Benzema."
