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The great night of former employee Benzema

2022-05-28T03:56:21.351Z


The road from Real Madrid to Paris is the great work of the Frenchman, with figures in the Champions League that compete with Cristiano's records


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Karim Benzema appeared this Friday in the last training session of Saint-Denis parsimonious, in the middle of the white squad, looking at the landscape while a few dozen volunteers shouted at him in chorus from the stands.

An amphitheater that for more than five years looked at him like a stranger, and even with disaffection.

The time he stayed away from the French team due to his involvement in the Valbuena case (blackmail for a sexual video), and for which he was sentenced to one year in prison.

Five years of frustration with his country that he used in recent times to star in one of the most amazing transformations in the modern age of an elite footballer who is already in his thirties.

Madrid's qualification for this Champions League final is, above all, the best expression of its growth on and off the pitch.

Since the last European conquest of the whites in 2018, no one hit such a growth spurt.

And no one saw it coming.

“Before we had Cristiano Ronaldo and now we don't, so it's my turn and I'm ready”.

He pronounced the phrase in November 2018, when the Portuguese had already been at Juventus for a few months.

Few noticed her and even fewer gave her credit.

The Castellana crowd had often looked at him with suspicion and the previous season, before finding some relief with his brace in the second leg of the semi-final against Bayern and Karius's loss in the final, he had barely scored two goals against the Apoel, and one to Getafe, Málaga, Betis, Alavés, Las Palmas, Leganés in the Cup and Barcelona in the Super Cup in August (12 throughout the course).

Figures so starved that even his great protector, Zinedine Zidane, had left him on the bench in the first leg of the semifinals in Munich for the benefit of Isco and Lucas Vázquez.

And to complete his delicate position in that summer of 2018, France was proclaimed world champion with him in the penalty room.

At that point he was before beginning to present himself as a liquidator of the area and, progressively, as a foreman of the booth.

The club delegated the goals to Bale when they saw themselves without Cristiano, but only he appeared.

Of the Welsh, not a trace.

Since Ronaldo left in 2018, Benzema has scored more goals than the Portuguese: 131-125

“We knew the dimension of his talent.

The strange thing is his change of personality, that he has taken that leadership from within, ”says Jorge Valdano, Madrid sports director when the club signed Benzema in 2009, the chosen one after it was “economically and politically” impossible to remove David Villa from Valencia.

Those who saw him land with that clueless, withdrawn and even lost air, like the former Argentine player, and those who later had him under their orders, like Carlo Ancelotti, agree in their astonishment when contemplating him in his current role as head of the locker room .

The Italian, who left him in 2015 as a distinguished subordinate of Ronaldo, has not tired of showing his surprise when he met again last summer with a

cappo

intramural.

Those who attended this new skin from outside, too.

"Not even now does he justify that there was a time when he was an employee of Cristiano," Valdano warns.

At the end of his first season at the Bernabéu, CR warned him: "Karim, this is not enough for Madrid"

A leadership supported by a generation of sustained scorers that this year has peaked: 44 goals and 15 assists.

Of all his trip from 2018 to 2022 without the Portuguese at his side, there is no more striking statistic than the counter of both in this period with their clubs: 131 the French and 125 the Portuguese, who only once in this legislature reached the quarterfinals.

So much so that in this Champions League Karim's numbers now only compete with CR's records: 15 goals in total (two behind the Portuguese mark on 13/14 and 15/16) and 10 in the knockout rounds (the same as Ronaldo on 16/17).

At the end of their first season at the Bernabéu, with Benzema on the wane, CR sat down next to him and blurted out: "Karim, this isn't enough for Madrid."

The Frenchman improved, he ended up hanging the starting lineup, but no one suspected that he could compete for the goal with CR.

To a large extent, also because of his extreme physical care, with a home gym, personal trainer and nutritionist.

Since he was left alone in the white attack in August 2018, his number of total shots per course has doubled (from 98 to 182) and, in addition, he needs half as many shots to score (from 8.1 to 4.1 per match).

Last Tuesday, before a swarm of thirsty journalists, Rodrygo was asked what was the best advice the Frenchman has given him.

"Touch the ball for him," he blurted out, smiling with his perfect white teeth and bony hands.

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Source: elparis

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