Benzema, to the rhythm of Messi

Ramos has left Madrid and Messi from LaLiga, but Benzema stays and has started the season as the previous one ended: scoring goals. The forward led his team to victory in the league debut with a double against Alavés. The Frenchman picked up the baton from Ramos as a spiritual guide for his team, symbolically and materially. Marcelo's absence made him wear the captain's armband (a responsibility that he assiduously assumed in the final stretch of last season) and he celebrated with his fifth double in the Liga de 2021. A calendar year in which he has scored 17 goals in LaLiga, only behind a Messi whose account remains at 23 after leaving Barça for Paris. Lewandowski, Haaland and André Silva, all three in the Bundesliga, are the only ones to keep up with each other in the five main European championships.

There is no difficulty stopping Karim. At 33, he hardly needed preseason to get in tune. The covid delayed his incorporation to work in the Madrid preseason. He has reached the premiere with less than two weeks of training in Valdebebas and without having been able to participate in any friendly. But The first real test has been passed with an outstanding: 89 minutes on the field and two goals that add Madrid to the provisional leadership.

Ancelotti finds words to describe him, but he believes that defining him as a forward is a concept that falls short of referring to Benzema: “To say forward seems little to him: he has a finish, the ability to read the situations of the game very well, sometimes he moves on the defense line, help in possession … If I have to compare him with the Karim I had five years ago, he is a much more complete player, with much more personality.“, said the Italian coach after the victory in Vitoria.

This Saturday was his 53rd double with Real Madrid, to which we must add six hat-tricks that he has marked in white. Benzema has scored 281 goals with the white jersey, which makes him the fifth highest scorer in the club's history, behind Cristiano (451 goals), Raúl (323), Di Stéfano (308) and Santillana (290). If you maintain the level of the 30 goals per season that you have reached or touched in the last three seasons, you can move up to second in that ranking at the end of the year. In another historical record, He only needs one to match the 195 of the Valencian legend Mundo and get among the top ten scorers in the history of the Spanish League.