BENZEMA. After the disappointment, room for misunderstanding and explanations for Karim Benzema’s injury.
[Mis à jour le 21 novembre 2022 à 09h35] It was to be his World Cup. Ballon d’Or 2022 and author of a remarkable season with Real Madrid, Karim Benzema arrived in the French team with a worrying state of health, he who had not played a full match with the real Madrid for almost a month. If he trained separately during the first days in order to preserve him, the decision to include him in collective training was perhaps a mistake and an impatience of the staff of the France team. If the French had hamstring pain in recent days, the quadriceps injury was not unknown and Real Madrid had communicated on “muscle fatigue” on October 22 after a match against Elche.
His friend Samir Nasri, questioned on Canal Plus, put his foot in the dish on Sunday November 20, explaining that Benzema’s management was bad. “I think the management was bad with him. He’s a special player who needs special attention. We didn’t necessarily need Benzema for Australia, Tunisia and Denmark. He’s a player who makes you go through a stage and so we needed him for the knockout matches. I find that really damaging. Shouldn’t have pushed him. He had played 60 matches last season, it’s normal that he feels a certain fatigue at 34. You didn’t necessarily have to push at the start of the World Cup.”
Didier Deschamps made his disappointment known in the wake of the package announcement. “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 which awaits us”, he underlines 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 training of the French team on Saturday evening in Doha, three days before the entry into the running of the Blues on Tuesday against Australia, was to mark a rise in power with the highly anticipated return of Karim Benzema and Raphaël 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.