The day after the defeat of the French team in the final of the 2022 World Cup, Karim Benzema probably announced the end of his international career. The striker seems in particular to have disagreements with the staff of the Blues.
[Mis à jour le 19 décembre 2022 à 22h40] Karim Benzema and the Blues, it’s over. Barely twenty-four hours after the defeat of the France team in the World Cup final against Argentina, the striker, forfeited for the competition, announced his international retirement. The 2022 Ballon d’Or posted a message on its Twitter account announcing its decision to no longer wear the Blues jersey. “I made the effort and the mistakes it took to be where I am today and I’m proud of it! I wrote my story and ours ends,” he wrote. This announcement comes after a World Cup for which he had to forfeit at the last moment after being hit in the thigh in training, just three days before the start against Australia. On social networks, he had since alternated messages of encouragement to the French and others, more enigmatic like the one posted on Instagram just before the Argentina-France final where he wrote: “It does not interest me. “
Behind this announcement, there is undoubtedly the certainty, on the part of Karim Benzema, that Didier Deschamps will remain coach of the Blues for at least the next two years. And the Madrid native is probably not wrong, as it already seems agreed that the former 98 world champion retains the reins of the Blues. Between the two men, the rag has burned, so that their reconciliation seems impossible.
Let us all the same keep in mind that in sport and a fortiori in football, international retirements are not always final, the recent example of Lionel Messi and Zinedine Zidane, who had given up their national team before returning , is the proof. But Karim Benzema seems to be at an impasse if he considers that the staff and the French football federation are not deeply transformed quickly. It should be noted, however, that the communication department of the France team posted a message this morning on the official Twitter account of the Blues, to wish a happy birthday to Karim Benzema with the hashtag #FiersdetreBleus.
Didier Deschamps should stay, Karim Benzema leaves
So who is to blame ? It must be said that the defeat of the Blues in the World Cup final created a major stir in the management of the group. The choices of Didier Deschamps will be commented on for a long time, but beyond those made during the last match against Argentina, it is also the case of Benzema who is already on the lips of all sports commentators. There was so little missing … And if the Ballon d’Or had been present? Besides, has everything really been done to preserve it physically? Could he have come back during the competition? While Olivier Giroud missed his final, many observers will have in mind this missed opportunity to see the Ballon d’Or 2022 evolve alongside Kylian Mbappé.
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 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: the player would have liked to do everything possible with the medical staff of the Blues to be available with the Beus for the final phase of the competition, which Didier Deschamps would have refused, considering that the group dynamic takes place without the absentees.
“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 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.