Since he was presented by Real Madrid on 9 July 2009, with around 15,000 people at the Santiago Bernabéu and a shirt still unnumbered, Karim Benzema has not only confirmed year after year the talent he showed at the beginning of his career at Lyon, but today he is a better and more complete striker.
When he emerged into football, the Frenchman was a player destined to score goals – there were 37 in all in the two editions of Ligue 1 before his arrival in Spain. At Real, however, he understood that he would not be the top scorer. The role fell to Cristiano Ronaldo, who became the greatest goalscorer in Merengue history.
It was then necessary for Benzema to adapt his game, creating spaces for the brilliance of Portuguese.
In the 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 seasons, he recorded 6 and 9 assists, respectively. As of 2011/2012, there was a jump in the number of opportunities created for teammates: there were 19 goal passes, followed by 21 in 2012/2013, 16 in 2013/2014 and 15 in 2014/2015. The numbers are from the Transfermarkt website.
“People see Benzema only as a striker, but he also has the skill of a talented midfielder. He has everything, he is a complete and fantastic player,” said coach Carlo Ancelotti, Champions League champion with Real Madrid. in 2014.
Ancelotti returned to work with the Frenchman last year on his return to Real. The Karim Benzema he found is on his way to completing the best season of his career. There are already 30 goals and 12 assists in the current course, with almost half a shift in LaLiga ahead and the Champions League play-off.
The Spanish team qualified for the quarter-finals of the European tournament last Wednesday (9th), with a 3-1 comeback victory over Paris Saint-Germain, in Madrid. Benzema scored all three in a 17-minute break.
Who celebrates, besides Carlo Ancelotti, is another coach who closely follows the athlete’s performance: Didier Deschamps, the commander of the French team that will seek, in Qatar, the second consecutive world championship.
Deschamps was responsible for reincorporating the striker into the national team after a six-year hiatus.
In 2015, Benzema was accused of being an accomplice in an attempt to extort his teammate Mathieu Valbuena, so that a video with sexual content involving the midfielder, who was at Lyon at the time, was not shared.
Investigated, Benzema was judicially prevented from approaching Valbuena, which would make it impossible for both to share summons. Neither he nor Benzema were part of the European runners-up group in 2016, which already had Deschamps at the helm.
World champion in 2018 without the Real Madrid player, the coach said he later talked to the athlete and reflected on his return to the French national team. “It was a deep conviction that led me to call him up,” he said.
Karim Benzema wore France’s blue shirt again in the preparatory games for Euro 2021. In the tournament, despite the four goals scored (two against Portugal and two against Switzerland), he left the feeling of still needing to adapt better to his teammates, especially his attacking teammates Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann, who started to play in the back, behind the pair, as an organizer.
More recent performances, however, showed an increasingly integrated Benzema. In the last four matches for the national team, including the semi-final and final of the Nations League, he has scored five goals.
His reinstatement and the possibility of confirming the best season for Real also coincide with the positive moment experienced by Mbappé, author of 25 goals and 14 assists for PSG in 2021/2022.
The 23-year-old forward was almost the hero of the Parisian club in the last 16 of the Champions League, scoring the winning goal in Paris and also the goal that opened the scoring at the Santiago Bernabéu. On the other side, however, there was Benzema.
“Sometimes I stop for a while on the field just to see them [Mbappé e Benzema] play: it’s wonderful. The more they play together and combine on the pitch, the better it will be for us. It is from this that we create advantages, opportunities and goals. So, it’s great that they understand each other that way”, commented Griezmann, during an interview with the Téléfoot channel, about having Real Madrid’s number 9 back.
In his room at the Clairefontaine training ground, home of the French national team, Didier Deschamps smiles.
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