Hazard may have only played one Barclays Premier League match, but expectations of the 21-year-old are already high after he starred in Chelsea's 2-0 win over Wigan on Sunday.
The Belgian, a ?32million signing from Lille this summer, carved open the Latics' defence to play in Branislav Ivanovic for Chelsea's opener and then won the penalty which Frank Lampard scored to effectively kill off the game after seven minutes.
McDermott first saw Hazard play five years ago when he was coming through the ranks at Lille and he knew then that the midfielder would turn in to a superstar.
The Reading boss, then employed as the club's chief scout, was startled by the player's skills, although he admitted it would have proved impossible to sign the teenage prodigy had the Berkshire club approached Lille.
"You can't go to a place like Lille and say 'we'll take your best player', it just doesn't happen," McDermott told a press conference.
"But I remember watching him. He was 16 and I thought he was a great talent then.
"He was phenomenal and everyone there knew at 16 what a talent he was going to be. He stood out like the proverbial sore thumb."
Wigan's players were unable to handle Hazard and some resorted to fouling the midfielder to stop him from wreaking more havoc.
Despite this, McDermott thinks the midfielder will get sufficient protection over the course of the season.
"When I played you could kick people out of the league because that's how it was in those days," the Reading manager said.
"Now it is not like that, thank God. One tackle now and you get booked and that's why the flair players thrive."
An interesting sub-plot to Wednesday's game is that both are now owned by wealthy Russians.
Roman Abramovich's expenditure at Chelsea is well-publicised, but less is know about Anton Zingarevich, who bought Reading off John Madejski this summer.
The Russian's father Boris Zingarevich is a multi-billionaire, and Anton has made hundreds of millions through his own business ventures.
McDermott tried to play down the link between the two clubs, but admits he is happy with the enthusiasm shown by Zingarevich since he completed his takeover of the club three weeks ago.
"We have got someone who is 30 and owns a Premier League football club, which is not a bad place to be," McDermott said.
"He will be there tomorrow. I speak to him once or twice a week and (director of football) Nick Hammond speaks to him most days.
"He loves his football, he absolutely loves it. I know he wanted to play football as a youngster.
"He got involved with the staff and press when we were over in Portugal (in pre-season).
"He was desperate to play. He did all right actually - he scored two.
"People will talk about Abramovich against Zingarevich and that's a good story, but all I know is that it's us against Chelsea."
While Chelsea eased to victory over Wigan, Reading had to work much harder in their first game of the season on Saturday.
The Berkshire club had to rely on a 90th-minute equaliser from Adam Le Fondre to snatch a draw against Stoke at home.
Wednesday's game will be much harder with the likes of Hazard, Juan Mata and Oscar likely to feature for Chelsea, but Reading midfielder Mikele Leigertwood insists the visitors will attack from the off at Stamford Bridge.
"You can't go in to any games fearing teams or sitting back. You have to attack and put teams under pressure and I'm sure we'll do that tomorrow," Leigertwood said.
"We want to give a good account of ourselves and go there and win hopefully."
