Real Madrid captain Karim Benzema can crown his top season on Saturday with a win in the Champions League final against Liverpool. Since the 34-year-old Frenchman is no longer in the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo, he has become one of the best footballers in the world.
Lionel Messi scratches his head again, Kylian Mbappe lies on the ground stunned and Neymar stares at the ground defeated. After 39 minutes, Paris Saint-Germain had a 1-0 lead against Real Madrid, but that advantage is now gone.
The reason: three goals from Benzema, who ended PSG’s Champions League dream in less than twenty minutes in the eighth finals. A month later, the Frenchman is also responsible for the elimination of the defending champion with four goals against Chelsea.
Benzema is currently the top scorer of the Champions League season with 15 goals. He made ten of those hits in the knockout phase. This equals the record of his former teammate Ronaldo.
“He’s god,” Real Madrid icon Iker Casillas wrote on Twitter about Benzema after the first leg against Chelsea, in which the striker scored a hat-trick. marca even made a comparison with the previous ‘god’ of Real after Benzema’s heroic role against PSG. “Karim Benzema is worth more to Real Madrid than Cristiano Ronaldo ever was,” the Madrid newspaper wrote.
Ronaldo would never have been this good without Benzema
Benzema and Ronaldo came to Real Madrid in 2009 as principal and finisher respectively. The two attackers soon turned out to be polar opposites. “It is not in Benzema’s character to be in the foreground, while Ronaldo claimed all the balls,” football commentator Sierd de Vos told NU.nl.
Ronaldo scored 450 goals in 438 games for Real Madrid in nine years, making him the all-time top scorer of ‘The Royal’ and surpassing Benzema. In the 2017/2018 season, Ronaldo’s last year in Madrid, Benzema signed as a striker for ‘only’ nine goals. His Portuguese teammate made 26. “Benzema’s figures have been crying out for a long time,” said De Vos.
David Álvarez, representing Real Madrid on behalf of the Spanish newspaper El Pais closely follows, states that Benzema is partly responsible for Ronaldo’s success. “There was a time when Benzema didn’t have to score because they had Ronaldo,” he says. “But Ronaldo could never have been so good at Real without Benzema.”
Benzema’s exceptional qualities have increasingly been reflected in the French striker’s stats since Ronaldo’s 2018 transfer to Juventus. “Benzema filled in the gap that Ronaldo left,” says Álvarez. “Since Ronaldo’s departure, he has suddenly started to score a lot.”
‘The older I get, the better I’m going to feel’
Since the 2018/2019 season, Benzema has scored 131 goals in 192 official matches for Real. This vintage is by far his best so far with 44 hits in 45 matches. “He has become more and more of a leader”, said Real coach Carlo Ancelotti at his press conference after the away game against Chelsea about the transformation of his captain. “He feels himself becoming more important and is therefore better.”
According to Álvarez, Benzema has increasingly come to live for his sport by spending more time in the gym. “He has been working very hard on himself on a physical level in recent years,” says the Spanish journalist.
Benzema himself said at the end of last year to ESPN that he feels better and better as he gets older. “It’s all in the work that no one sees me doing. What I do when I get home and what I do after a workout. How serious I take everything. Sometimes I’m tired and don’t want to work out, but I find it work nice and I know it makes me better. So I’ll go anyway.”
That determination is essential, according to Álvarez. “He puts all his time and energy into the team and his work. That combination makes him one of the best players at the moment.”
The final of the Champions League between Liverpool and Real Madrid starts on Saturday at 9 p.m. at the Stade de France in Paris.