Do Karim Benzema and Didier Deschamps hate each other? Obviously not, but their relationship deteriorated at the very start of the World Cup, the two men having had strong differences of opinion on the competition.
More Karim Benzema in the France team? The announcement of number 9 of real Madrid, on December 19, who announced on his social networks that his story with the Blues was “over” surprised many people, since the Lyonnais had never seemed as strong as this year. But this hasty departure is not illogical, given the level of animosities accumulated in recent weeks between a few people, who have probably struggled to burst all the abscesses.
To tell the truth, it is undoubtedly the story of a huge mess, as the talent of Karim Benzema has splashed the world of sport in the past two years. The Ballon d’Or 2022, already deprived of the World Cup because of an injury, no longer intends to wear the jersey of the France team. Football lovers can feed this regret: no longer seeing the Griezmann-Mbappe-Benzema trio on the pitch, called to play the leading roles at least until 2024. Yes, but here it is, for Karim Benzema, the cup is full : he no longer feels in his place in this team, managed by the current staff and in an environment where nothing escapes Didier Deschamps.
It’s no secret: the relationship between Didier Deschamps and the Real Madrid star has been strained for many years: their reconciliation a few weeks before the Euro was very fragile. Too much to resist the tensions that arose with the attacker’s injury, which led to his ousting from the France team. Karim Benzema had to forfeit at the last moment after being hit in the thigh in training, just three days before the start of the match against Australia. While we expected a quick return, just after the competition in Doha, Karim Benzema said stop.
Why did Karim Benzema decide to leave the Blues?
So who is to blame ? If the defeat of the Blues in the final of world Cup created a major stir on the management of the group, many observers questioned the choices of Didier Deschamps on the Benzema case. There was so little missing … And if the Ballon d’Or had been present? Basically, has everything really been done to preserve it physically? Could he have come back during the competition?
We know a little more about the extra-sporting context, and certain elements suggest that the disenchantment between Karim Benzema and the staff of the Blues has lasted too long. The French star of Real Madrid had already decided to refuse the invitation of the FFF and Emmanuel Macron to go to Doha to attend the final of the Blues. And the player’s communication was controversial: few messages of support during the competition, but above all this photo of him, pouting, posted the day before the final with this comment: “I’m not interested”. If nothing is clear in this way of speaking, it was already quite obvious that the situation between Karim Benzema and the FFF was delicate.
Moreover, the very well-informed newspaper L’Equipe, which is not the type to produce files on rumours, took the liberty of publishing an article on Sunday December 18 entitled “The ‘Benzema file’ has polluted the preparation of the World Cup final. According to the French daily, the relationship between the Madrid player and Didier Deschamps would have deteriorated considerably: the player would have liked to do everything possible with the medical staff of the Blues to be available with the France team for the final phase of the competition, which that Didier Deschamps would have refused, considering that the group dynamic takes place without the absentees. It is this disagreement that seems to be at the heart of the tensions which, by snowball effect – and no doubt by disagreement or lack of communication – led to the breakup.
It is undoubtedly necessary to measure these tensions in the light of the issue and the particular context at this moment of the season: according to Foot Mercato, the medical team of the Blues wanted to carry out a complete check-up for Karim Benzema, in order to have all the necessary certainties about his state of form. But the Real Madrid player did not want to comply. According to the media, the staff of the Blues would then have developed some doubts about the sincerity of the Madrid player.
Could Didier Deschamps have avoided this situation, by talking more with Karim Benzema? By reassuring him? By making him understand how precious he could be? To tell the truth, these marks of attention, which could have changed things, are not really in the bag of the coach, who has other tools and ways of doing things to motivate his troops. And Didier Deschamps can also consider that everything is simpler without Karim Benzema, as L’Equipe writes in its December 20 edition. “Was the plan to call Benzema back after this World Cup, when Kylian Mbappé has definitely taken the lead on the pitch? And the two no longer have much affinity, after the circumstantial alliance at the start? We will never know, even if we have a small idea. If he extends with the Blues, the coach will not even have to ask himself these questions. He will be able to rebuild around the Parisian star and the golden youth, who did not need the light of a Ballon d’Or to shine in Qatar”, can we read in the columns of Daily Sports.
“Shadow Zones”
For its part, the Relevo media revealed on December 15 that the center-forward had been upset by the FFF’s lack of interest in him and by Didier Deschamps’ statements concerning him. For the consultant and former world champion Emmanuel Petit, who spoke this Monday, December 19 on RMC, “there are gray areas”. “The France team was scheduled to go at least to the quarters, we could have taken the bet to go at least to the quarters. We could have taken the bet to keep him and treat him. […] It all seems a bit nebulous to me.”
L’Equipe add, and it’s no surprise, that Deschamps and Benzema were never “accomplices”. Didier Deschamps would also have been annoyed by the attitude of his player, who had not thanked him during his speech at the time of the presentation of his Ballon d’Or.
Asked about the tensions mentioned in the media between him and the Ballon d’Or, and about the latter’s refusal to come and support the Blues in Doha, Didier Deschamps had this answer at a press conference on Sunday: “You pass the word between foreign journalists? If I don’t answer, you’ll say I’m pissed. I have players who have been injured before. Karim is one of them. The last to be injured is Lucas Hernandez. I have players to manage and you know them. Asking the question vis-à-vis these players, if I may say so, it’s awkward to say the least, or even a little more. (…) I don’t does not deal with invitations from players, former players or injured players”.
It is therefore now the future of Karim Benzema in Blues that arises. “If the coach extends with the Blues, he will once again have to break the ice with KB9, as before theEuro 2021, when the two men had met on the Côte d’Azur at Guy Stephan’s to iron out their differences related to the sextape affair. It will still be necessary, this time, that the two parties want to take a step towards each other, which is not at all certain”, writes L’Equipe.
Didier Deschamps had however made his disappointment known in the wake of the announcement of the package. “I am extremely sad for Karim who had made this World Cup a major objective. Despite this new blow for the French team, I have full confidence in my group. We will do everything to meet the immense challenge awaits us”, he underlined in the press release from the FFF. A few minutes later, Karim Benzema spoke in turn via a message on his Instagram account. “In my life, I have never given up, but tonight I have to think about the team as I always have, so reason tells me to give up my place to someone who can help our group to have a great World Cup. Thank you for all your messages of support”.
Saturday evening November 19, The newspaper The Team evoked “a sharp muscle pain in the left quadriceps”. The examinations taken in the evening at the premises of the Aspetar medical facility in Doha confirmed an unequivocal verdict: “a lesion of the femoral rectus, which will require a recovery period of three weeks” according to the press release from the federation. It was too much to participate in the group stage of the World Cup and even hypothetically in a large part of the possible knockout matches if the Blues qualified. What to ratify in the wake of a package. Karim Benzema is thus deprived of a second World Cup, he who had not participated in the 2010 World Cup and the Knysna scandal, had reached the quarter-finals with the Blues in 2014 in Brazil before being dismissed for Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup.
Interviewed on the show Telefoot, Sunday, November 20, Didier Deschamps explained how Karim Benzema was injured. “It wasn’t in the opposition, it was in the game, he had played games before. Everything was under control, he was taking another step, as was the case with Varane. It wasn’t not even on an acceleration, a strike.” The coach then added that injuries could happen in training, that it was not a relapse. “It’s a big blow, of course. Karim had done everything. He was in session and with an almost innocuous gesture… here it is, it’s the other leg and in front while it was the ischio on the other”, detailed Didier Deschamps.
If the medical verdict dismisses the thesis of the relapse of a hamstring injury that Karim Benzema has been dragging for more than a month, he who had hardly played in competition with his club Real Madrid for more than a months, the injury of the French striker will raise many questions. Was it imperative to accelerate his return for participation in the first match against Australia on Tuesday? While the French team’s training on Saturday evening in Doha, three days before the Blues’ entry into the running on Tuesday against Australia, was to mark a rise in power with the highly anticipated return of Karim Benzema and Raphael Varane in collective training, after several days away marked by care and exercises aimed at getting them back on their feet and reassuring them before the first match, this trial run finally turned into a disaster. According to RMC Sport, the former Lyonnais was not injured in a shock or contact with a partner, but following a race, immediately feeling “sharp pain” in his left leg.