“Benzema has been making it clear for years that this is his Real Madrid”

Real Madrid’s victory over Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals (1-3) showed another virtue than Benzema has added to his game over the years: the header. In his day it was a resource to which the French rarely resorted, less likely to enter the melee; over time he has become a specialist, this year he has only done four goals like that, but in 2018-19 he scored 11 of his 30 goals in this way, 37%. Nothing to do with the beginnings of him: in his first four seasons at Madrid, he scored a total of seven headed goals.

To analyze Benzema’s two wonderful headers at Stamford Bridge, to passes from Vinicius and Modric, nobody better than the great headers in white history: Santillana, Hugo Sánchez, Morientes… and Iván Zamorano, who attends AS from Miami, where he has lived for five years and where he works as a commentator and collaborator for TUDN, gigantic sports channel emerged from the union of Univision (USA) and Televisa (Mexico). There he coincides, among others, with Stoichkov, the Barcelona striker in the 5-0 win at the Bernabéu in the 1994-95 season. “The Madrid-Barcelona team suffer a lot here… And they enjoy themselves, too!” He jokes; that day in January 1995, only Zamorano enjoyed, author of a hat-trick in one of the most remembered nights in the history of the Classic.

As a good area specialist, Zamorano sublimated the header, as did Benzema in London. “During the game I remembered an interview with him from a long time ago, in which they asked him what was the facet in which he believed he had more room for improvement. And he talked about the header. The two he did against Chelsea were perfect. The first is the most difficult, he comes from making a wall with Vinicius and runs 20 or 25 meters to get to that ball, with defenders on both sides. The center is perfect, but it’s not easy for a header, he has a lot of spin and goes very hard, and he makes it easy. Along the way, he organizes his body to arrive prepared and the shot is perfect, with power and placement. It’s an extraordinary goal.”

From 0-2, the Chilean highlights the almost telepathic connection that unites Benzema with one of the team’s engines, Modric: 2Everyone already knows Karim’s movements, and Modric without looking, because his back is turned, looks for him because he knows he’s going to be in there, and Benzema finished off perfectly, changing the post to the goalkeeper, without much power, but well placed. of the second goal the most interesting thing, for me, is his movement, he gets between the two defenders and at that moment you already know that what you have to do is change the direction of the ball to catch the goalkeeper off guard. He did very well.”

In his first season in Madrid, 1992-93, Zamorano finished the course with 37 goals that were not enough to win the League (it was the second of the two that were lost in Tenerife), although they did win a Copa del Rey against the Saragossa. Benzema has 37 goals this season, in which his awakening as an area cannibal has reached heights that seemed impossible years ago. “The Benzema thing no longer surprises me. It has been showing for years that this is Benzema’s Madrid. And the best version of him has nothing to do with scoring, it has to do with being a complete player. It’s not just football, it’s also fighting, sacrifice… Also magic, which is what dazzles us all when we see him. To all of us who have ever worn the ‘9’ of Madrid, Karim gives us back a bit of the way we see football in its entirety, football art. And he is already a legendary scorer, of the time. What he did was extraordinary”, analyzes ‘Bam Bam’.

“There’s no doubt: Benzema deserves the Ballon d’Or”

Zamorano values ​​not only what Benzema contributes in the area; also his offensive omnipresence, his ability to raise the general tone of Madrid: “When the team is not with that ease or that intensity in the game, he appears to change everything. And it is already something usual. He lived for a long time, I don’t want to say in the shadows, but with someone like Cristiano, with such a strong image, and perhaps he was simplified. And when Cristiano leaves, Benzema is freed, and he reaches the goal much more, moving around the entire front of attack. If you see him play, you don’t know what he plays, he appears at one end, at the other, he comes from the midfield… The team fits perfectly with him and it is important that he creates those small partnerships, like the one he has with Vinicius, or with Modric. The madridistas have the enormous happiness of having found for a long time the Benzema that Madrid needed”.

In this context, the question must be asked: is he the top favorite at this time to win the next Ballon d’Or? Zamorano, as was the case with the balls that swarmed through the area, has no doubts: “It’s very clear. He has been fighting for it for quite some time and this year I don’t think there are any doubts.. He absolutely deserves it, he is a player to whom no one has given anything, everything has been effort and perseverance, on his own merits he deserves the Ballon d’Or”.