Is Karim Benzema the best football player in the world? The veteran, crumbled in the hustle and bustle, can finally rise from the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo

The semi-finals of the Men’s Football Champions League start with a encounter between two giants, but with very different starting points.

Manchester City have won the English Premier League five times in the last ten years. The club has had a currency to retouch in the player market since it won the Abu Dhabi oil coins in 2008. Then Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyanin that is, the Abu Dhabi United Group, led by Sheikh Mansour, acquired the club.

Even now, City leads the Premier League, but the Manchester Blue has never been able to celebrate the Champions League trophy. City has only reached the finals once, but Chelsea was better in last spring’s final.

Head coach Pep Guardiola celebrated the Champions League victory at the helm of FC Barcelona in 2009 and 2011. Since moving from Bayern to Munich City in 2016, there have been three Premier League championships. However, there have been only disappointments on the European scene.

Now Manchester City is facing a team that, in addition to their home country, is really used to succeeding on European pitches. Real Madrid has won the Champions League or the previous European Cup as many as 13 times. AC Milan has the second most wins, seven.

City won their starting block before Paris Saint-Germain. In the quarter-quarter, it knocked out Portugal’s Sporting 5-0 and in the semi-finals Atletico Madrid 1-0.

If City’s progression to the semifinals has been clinical, there has been no shortage of color in Real Madrid’s journey. Although the Madrid club also dominates La Liga, Spain, playing “Los Blancos” has not convinced experts. Still, Madrid is back in the semifinals – mostly their veteran striker Karim Benzeman thanks to.

French cannon Benzema, 34, made the second half of the hat-trick in the second half of the quarter-finals in the second half to 20 minutes. Prior to that, PSG led the way with 2-0. The match became another shock in the Champions League, among other things Lionel Messin, Kylian Mbappen and Neymarin to Parisian star cream.

In the quarterfinals, Real Madrid beat Chelsea. This time, Benzema hit the hat trick in London in the first playoff. In the second match in Madrid, Chelsea rose magnificently from 1 to 3 alongside and past, but Real’s Rodrygo leveled. The game progressed to extra time, when the winning goal was struck by anyone other than Benzema.

Benzema has played in the Champions League since 2005, first in his club in Lyon and then since 2009 in Real White.

Now, for the first time, he has a chance to win the series at the Paint Exchange. Benzema has finished 12 goals, while Bayern, which fell in the semi-finals Robert Lewandowski painted 13 times.

In the all-time Champions League paint market, Benzema ranks four with 83 hits. Lewandowski has been hit a total of 86 times. Messi (125 goals) and Cristiano Ronaldo (140 goals) are above with their own readings.

Benzema has become the hottest striker in the world, considered by many to be the best football player in the world right now. In the past, for example, he has been glorified as the best in the world by a compatriot Zinedine Zidanewho, however, could pull home while coaching Real Madrid.

But this year, Benzema is really a favorite even as the winner of the Ballon d’Or. Benzema can become the oldest Ballon d’Or in modern football, the winner of the Golden Ball. At the top of that list is and will remain sir Stanley Matthewswho received his first split Golden Ball in 1956 when he was 41 years and 10 months old.

– He’s like a great wine. He is a strong person who knows he is an important player. How he carries himself makes him a role model for everyone. Karim is a constant threat in the pits and we are happy to be playing on our side, praised Benzemaa Real’s head coach Carlo Ancelotti After a hat trick at Chelsea.

First of all, Benzema is a very skilled and versatile finisher, both on foot and on top. After the 2017-18 season, Benzema has been able to exceed its xG reading every season, which is what it expects to achieve in matches.

– If we talk about solution players, there are not many that can be compared to him. He has it all. He’s the perfect striker, the Football España reporter glowed Alan Feehely CNN case (switch to another service).

Despite this, the general consensus is that Benzema is one of the most undervalued football players.

This is largely because Cristiano Ronaldo starred in Real’s attack in 2009-2018. Also Gareth Bale was in a big role, especially in its first years after reaching Real in 2013.

In the 2016-17 season, Benzema scored 11 goals in the Spanish league. In Ronaldo’s final Madrid season 2017-18, Benzema missed just five goals. Since then, more than 20 league goals have been scored each season. This season, he has a total of 39 hits in the pile, including cup races.

– When I played with a man who scored 50 or 60 goals per season, of course I was the player serving him because Ronaldo was the one who scored a lot of goals. I had to adjust and I did. He left, so it was my job to take a step forward and show that I can do it, has Benzema described Ronaldo’s influence To the BBC (switch to another service).

When Real was drawn to Valencia at the start of the 2017 season, the Frenchman missed six goals and was knocked out by the crowd at Madrid’s home Bern Santiago.

Above all, Benzema is a versatile player. This feature also evolved as he had to adjust his playing in Ronaldo’s “shadows.” Head coach Ancelotti also recently stressed that Benzema is a holistic player, not just a pure striker. Real Madrid’s leading player has also been able to play well on the sidelines or below the top player during his career.

– There are strikers who do not touch the ball during the match. Then comes the 87th minute, when they score a goal and they are very satisfied. Personally, I hate it if I don’t get involved in the ball game much, but in the 90th minute, Benzema uploaded to the BBC.

Benzema and 21 years old Vinicius Junior have scored 18 goals this season, one as a pitcher and the other as a finisher. Often the Frenchman falls lower on the field, dragging the central defenders with him, giving the nimble Brazilian room to run from his left side to the back of the defense.

Benzema also likes to participate in fast feed combinations. When France played the last World Cup qualifier against Finland in the autumn, Benzema withdrew to the edge of the penalty area. There he got the ball to his right foot, baited the box at the outside edge to Mbappe, circled with a small motion Urho Nissilän and loaded the ball into the net with one touch after Mbappen fed the ball back.

Against Chelsea in the Champions League, the goalie got the ball from Vinicius Junior, playing with one touch for a perfect vertical pass, which Vinicius easily reached before the end limit. Benzema had continued to run towards the goal and pushed Brass’ s cross to the ceiling.

Benzema is both a playmaker and a scorer in Real Madrid. In addition to forging hard amounts of paint, Benzema has made Vinicius Junior, according to journalist Feehely, Marco Asensio and Federico Valverde better than they would be without the French fist.

Benzema has won the Champions League four times in Real. But if he leads his team to the championship now, even without Cristiano Ronaldo, he will finally get the recognition he deserves, Alan Feehely estimates.

“That’s when I think he’s proven to be one of the best strikers in modern football,” Feehely told CNN.

While one of Benzeman’s most important qualities on the field is intelligence and maturity, he has not escaped the hustle and bustle outside the field. The best known of these is the sex video scandal that took place in various French courts for years.

The case dates back to 2015. That’s when Benzema’s national teammate Mathieu from Valbuena the sex video described had ended up with two men asking Benzeman for help with their operation. According to the prosecutor, Benzema urged Valbuena to pay the blackmailers so that the sex video would not be released.

Finally, last fall, Benzema received a one-year suspended sentence and fines of € 75,000 for involvement in extortion.

– The verdict received by Benzema has been the number one news item in France today. This whole blackmail scandal and the related lawsuits have been followed with great interest in France, ‘s correspondent Annastiina Heikkilä said in November.

Benzema and Valbuena were sidelined from the national team in 2015. However, Benzema returned to the ranks of “Les Bleus” at the European Championships in 2021.

The small-scale uproar was also caused in early 2020, when Benzema compared himself to the number one striker on the French World Cup gold team in 2018 in the following way: To Oliver Giroud:

In any case, Feehely believes that Benzema has matured. In his view, explaining the real gambler’s vibe only with Ronaldo’s departure would be “excessive simplification.”

– As many players do at the age of 30, they realize that their time is limited and they don’t have much left of it at the top level. It revolutionizes their attitudes toward their own fitness, their diet, their out-of-field behavior, and I think Karim is an example, Feehely analyzes on CNN.

Benzema is the leading name in Real Madrid’s history in terms of goals. He is third in the goals. Legendary Raul 323 hits are five goals away. Ronaldo shot Real a whopping 450 full hits.

If Benzema was boasted in 2017, now only love is available in Madrid. The championship jug in the Champions League and the victory in the paint exchange could seal the selection as the best in the world.

The resistance in the semi-finals is the toughest caliber, but when it comes to the Champions League, Real Madrid shouldn’t be painted as an underdog against the hungry City either.