Monday 15 August 2016 19:31, UK
Eden Hazard and Dimitri Payet spent a season together at Lille in 2011/12. Hazard was the star back then, but when the pair face each other for Chelsea and West Ham respectively on Monday Night Football, it will be as Premier League equals, writes Adam Bate.
Dimitri Payet's difficult beginnings in football are well known. Kicked out of Le Havre as a teenager, he was sent back to his home in Reunion, 5700 miles away in the Indian Ocean. It wasn't to be the end of Payet's career - or his disciplinary problems.
Given another opportunity with Nantes, he stormed out of a 2007 training session after a row with senior goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. At Saint-Etienne in 2010, Payet struck his own captain, Blaise Matuidi, during a home defeat to Toulouse.
He went missing soon after in the hope of forcing through a transfer to Paris St Germain. "He made a blunder," said Saint-Etienne president Roland Romeyer at the time. "What kid hasn't made a mistake?" But Payet made more than most.
Flash forward six years and the West Ham man is a hero for club and country, named in the PFA Premier League team of the year and the Euro 2016 team of the tournament. At 29, he's now playing the best football of his career.
A late bloomer then, but one whose talent was never hidden. Payet's France debut had come at the age of 23, providing assists in each of his first two appearances. Damien Comolli, sporting director during Payet's stay at Saint-Etienne, hinted that any issues were in the mind.
"On a natural class level, Dimitri is stronger than a player like Luka Modric, who I saw very closely at Tottenham," Comolli told France Football in 2010. "It is a very high level. We never stopped repeating to him: 'It is only up to you.'"
It was this Payet, not the hero of France whose goal lit up the opening night of the Euros, who pitched up at Lille in 2011. The club were newly-crowned as the champions of France, winners for the first time in 57 years thank to the precocious gifts of Eden Hazard.
Lille supporters might have envisioned a perfect partnership between the two players, but it took time for the new signing to settle. Despite being four years older than Hazard, it was Payet who was the one still learning to make the most of his ability.
He scored twice in his first 28 appearances and by the winter of 2011 found himself among the substitutes. Indeed, Payet didn't even start consecutive games alongside Hazard between November and mid-March. On-loan Joe Cole was preferred instead.
Cole has since revealed some surprise at how quickly Payet made his impact at West Ham, having assumed it might take his former team-mate "six, seven, eight months to settle down" in England, but this was understandable based on the evidence of their time at Lille.
Expressing himself alongside Hazard was a problem for a Payet. "I'm asking him to do different things to Saint-Etienne," said Lille coach Rudi Garcia. "It's logical that it takes time. The competition should push him to excel. Dimitri must display confidence, he must let go."
Within months, he was starting to do just that. A goal in a 3-0 win at Evian sparked a run of three consecutive games in which Payet found the net. Finally, Garcia got to see the player he'd bought and finally there was a glimpse of what Payet and Hazard could do together.
"It is interesting when he is in close proximity to Eden because they get along well on and off the field," said Garcia. "The potential was there, we knew that. But beyond that there was a real confidence problem with him. The difference is that he is now full of confidence."
Look hard enough and there were signs of the Payet who'd emerge. While it was Hazard who topped Lille's charts for goals and assists - recording a league record number of the latter - it was actually Payet who created more chances per minute than the team's star.
Following Hazard's departure that summer, he went on to enjoy the joint-best goalscoring season of his career to date. It earned Payet a move to Marseille and, eventually, an unlikely link-up with Marcelo Bielsa that would help take his career to another level.
It was after one particular Bielsa team-talk that Payet turned to goalkeeper Steve Mandanda and said: "Now I can die for him." Despite the coach's nickname being El Loco, it was Bielsa's calm that impressed Payet. He responded by matching Hazard's Ligue 1 assists record from 2011/12.
The Argentine trusted Payet, turning him into the team's playmaker. It helped prepare him for the move to England that Cole had recommended three years earlier, seizing it in style to become West Ham's most thrilling performer and win a France recall in the process.
He took his chance at Euro 2016 too, forcing his way into Didier Deschamps' starting line-up and scoring that winner against Romania. "You have to say thanks to West Ham," said team-mate Patrice Evra afterwards, "because you can see now that he takes responsibility."
In truth, Payet has had many influences. The credit should be shared. From the wasted chances as a teenager through to the faith of the coaches who've been so emphatically rewarded, it has been quite the journey to the top. Team-mates played their part too.
"I have been helped by the top players at all the clubs I have played for," he said recently. "When you are playing with such good players it does make things easier but I also feel that you can learn new things at all ages... My maturity has helped me see things differently."
Payet learnt from Hazard and has become a different player today to the one he'd been at Lille. In fact, having outshone his old friend in the Premier League last season, perhaps he's even now looking like the senior man that he is. But the real indication of Payet's progress is that this Monday they will face each other as equals.
