"You don't confuse F1 with karting." Sunday evening, Karim Benzema threw fuel on the fire of a debate which is now five years old. At the bend of a live on his Instagram account, the now ex-attacker of the Blues wanted to deliver straight away the bottom of his thought on Olivier Giroud, holder of the position in the French team. If France football is used to this kind of debate, what do the statistics say? With our partner Opta , let's compare the results of the last two incumbents in the selection. As the saying goes, taken up by more or less discerning eyes, "men lie but numbers don't."
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The declaration of Karim Benzema who compares Giroud to one in Karting and has him a Formula 1 pic.twitter.com/j3iE5Hiec9
- Did you know? Football (@ Conte2Foot) March 29, 2020A flattering club record for Benzema
Regarding the goals scored in the five major championships, slight advantage to the scorer of Real Madrid. With 205 goals in 16 seasons and 450 games (in Lyon and then Real Madrid), Benzema has a record of one goal every 150 minutes since his debut between Rhône and Saône on April 2, 2005 against Lens (1-0). As for him, Olivier Giroud had to wait until the summer of 2010 to make his big debut in Ligue 1 with Montpellier following a full season with Tours (21 goals) at the lower level. Since then, the Savoyard has scored 113 goals in 302 games and 11 seasons at the highest level, one goal every 170 minutes. Over the decade, taking into account the arrival of Olivier Giroud in one of the five major championships, the results remain in favor of his Madrid counterpart since Karim Benzema, in 311 matches played, scored a whopping 156 goals. Slightly late, the Blues striker inevitably pays for his complicated period since his arrival at Chelsea in January 2018, where he was in delicacy since the arrival of Frank Lampard before he returned to the front of the stage to finally be cut in its tracks by the Coronavirus pandemic.
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It is in the Champions League that "F1" shows its top speed. Fourth top scorer in the history of the most prestigious of competitions, "KB9" scored 64 goals (none on penalty) in 119 games played. Tricolor most capped in the Champions League (ahead of Thierry Henry and his 112 matches), the 32-year-old striker has almost four times more matches in the competition than his counterpart a year older. In 32 games played in C1, Olivier Giroud presents a record of 12 achievements, close to his 11 achievements in a Europa League campaign that had allowed Chelsea to raise the C3 last year.
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Olivier Giroud to his advantage in the Blue jersey
But if the two players are often at the center of the most passionate debates, it is in particular about the center-forward position in the French Team. Karim Benzema, whose last selection dates back to October 8, 2015 and a successful Riviera evening with a double against Armenia (4-0), nevertheless wished to recognize the contribution of Olivier Giroud under the tunic struck by the rooster: " If we talk about style of play, his suits the French team well. ” Aware of the two styles of playing antipodes one of the other, the Madrid is however forced to emphasize the effectiveness of the world champion. “He, in front, weighs on the defenses, which allows the other two to move a lot and show themselves. It blocks and it works. ”, He continued. And for good reason, it works. With 39 goals scored in 97 games, Olivier Giroud is on the podium of the most prolific players in selection, two lengths from Michel Platini and twelve from Thierry Henry. In comparison, Karim Benzema - everyone remembers his 1222 minutes of famine in the blue jersey - presents a record of 26 achievements in 76 selections, a record reduced to a goal every 188 minutes, against one every 142 minutes for Giroud.
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In any event, if the “F1” Benzema has much longer break times in the club (4 C1 on the charts) and in particular in the Champions League, it is an Olivier Giroud who is less well-motorized who stands out in Blue. Was this not the heart of the debate? Anyway, when the sport is at a standstill, Karim Benzema has brought him back to life in the age-old debate on the ideal profile at the forefront of the attack of the French Team. Yet it was without him that the Blues found themselves on the roof of the world.
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