If he has not played a single match with the Blues, the Frenchman could be in the stands in the event of the final.
Karim Benzema closely follows the performance of the France team. Whether on social networks or within the group, the Ballon d’Or 2022 keeps in touch and sends messages of encouragement, as Raphael Varane explained at a press conference. Always present in the list of Didier Deschamps, Karim Benzema will also be crowned world champion in the event of victory for France this Sunday in the final.
In the meantime, if the Frenchman has been back in training since this week with his club Real Madrid, he could join the Blues in Qatar if they qualify for the final. It’s the Spanish media Mundo Deportivo who reveals the information on Wednesday December 14 after the agreement of his club Real Madrid. Remains the hardest now, beating Morocco in the semi-finals of the World Cup to see KB9 again with the Blues.
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 of real Madrid for more than a month, 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.