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Benzema ruminates his anger in the field

2022-12-16T11:12:23.994Z


The striker, convinced that Deschamps pushed him to leave the World Cup without reason, plays a friendly and does not consider going to the final


While the French team was digesting their pass to the World Cup final at the Al Messila hotel yesterday, Karim Benzema, who left there injured on November 20, was playing a friendly match with Real Madrid against Leganés in Valdebebas.

France processed the victory and the forward, his anger with Didier Deschamps, who considers that he showed him the exit without sufficient justification, according to several sources with access to the white dressing room.

The tension between the two has never fully healed.

The French coach was asked after beating Morocco about the chances that the striker, who is still registered in the tournament, would return to France before the final, and at that moment the shot of joy of the night was cut off.

"Pffff," he snorted.

He paused for almost two seconds and continued: “I would prefer not to answer you.

Come on, next question."

And before that next question came, he spoke again: "Excuse me."

And there he stayed.

Benzema arrived in Qatar dragging the muscular discomfort that prevented him from a clean start to the season with Real Madrid.

In the first two training sessions with France, the striker worked on the sidelines, but on the third day the coaching staff decided to add him to the group.

And after a few minutes, when he finished the part open to the media, he had to retire with a puncture in his left thigh.

Shortly before midnight, the federation issued a statement that sentenced him: "Karim Benzema, hit in the quadriceps of his left thigh, is forced to give up participating in the World Cup."

He did not agree, but when he received a visit from Deschamps in his room, he understood that they would rather go on without him.

I don't see you, he told him.

A few hours later, at 8:00 a.m. on November 20, the day of the opening game, a regular Qatar Airways flight took off from Doha airport with the striker on board.

He didn't want to wait to get a private plane that noon.

He didn't say goodbye to his companions either.

Upon arriving in Madrid, he went for three days to be treated at the sports city in Valdebebas, and went on vacation to Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean 3,200 kilometers south of Qatar.

He returned to training at the sports city last Saturday, still resentful of Deschamps and convinced that the federation had not adequately managed his recovery, but instead rushed into the type of work scheduled for him.

In recent days in Madrid, he has exercised with footballers who have not participated in the World Cup and who came from a two-week vacation, with which the general physical tone had decreased.

Within this joint plan to recover the form prior to the break for the tournament in Qatar, Madrid played a friendly in Valdebebas yesterday in two 30-minute periods, in which Benzema played only the first part, with the captain's armband.

Training ended 1-1, with goals from Kroos and Undabarrena, three days before the final in Doha, which, according to Valdebebas sources, the striker is not planning to attend.

The disagreement in Qatar is the latest chapter in the tense relationship between Deschamps and Benzema since the federation removed him from the national team after the case of sexual blackmail against Valbuena in which the judge designated him as an accomplice.

After six years away, in which he missed the 2016 Euro Cup and the 2018 World Cup, the federation got him back for the 2021 Euro Cup, after a round of consultations with some of the most important footballers, such as Mbappé, who gave its okay.

In Doha, the rope between Benzema and Deschamps, who always preferred to play with Giroud as nine, was broken again.

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Source: elparis

All sports articles on 2022-12-16

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