Chelsea was facing elimination during their Capital One Cup match against Swansea, as the teams were scoreless late in the match. Swansea was ahead 2-0 on aggregate, so it was imperative that Chelsea get something going in the last 10 minutes of regulation should they have any hope of advancing to the cup final.

Unfortunately for The Blues they would have to do the improbable with only 10 men after Eden Hazard was sent off for kicking a ball boy who refused to turn the ball over to the Chelsea forward at the 79-minute mark of the match.

As you can tell in the above video (before it gets taken down, of course), the ball boy deliberately keeps from turning the ball over to Hazard, despite the fact that the ball belongs to Chelsea at that point, eventually laying on top of it.

Hazard kicks the ball out from underneath the prone ball boy, kicking him in the ribs as he does so, thus earning himself a straight red card and ejection from the game. It didn’t help Hazard’s cause that the kid milked the “injury” for all it was worth.

The blame here should fall as much on the kid as it does Hazard. Obviously kicking the ball boy in the side, whether intentional or not, is not the best course of action in this situation, but so too is refusing to turn over the ball to a player who’s team is in rightful possession of said ball.

Not sure what was going through the kid’s mind—unless the ball was actually his and he wanted to take it and go home—but he learned a valuable life lesson that day…Eden Hazard is not above kicking a child.

The game would end in a draw, meaning Swansea will face League Two Bradford in the final.

via LAF