When Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema finally wins his first Ballon d’Or, as he surely must in 2022, I sincerely hope that his first words are… “I have to thank Vinicius Jose Paixao de Oliveira Junior.”
Right now, Benzema is playing the most beautiful football of any player in any major league, and he’s been doing so since the beginning of the 2021-22 season. It’s not simply about the vast flood of goals he’s scoring during the most prolific few months of his entire career. It’s not even simply about the fact that he has taken Real Madrid’s capacity to be the all-time, comeback “don’t you dare write us off” kings of European football and added extra tungsten-tough unbeatability thanks to a string of improbable, admirable and unexpected goals.
It’s that his technical skills, decision-making, movement, passing, daring, creativity, self-confidence, heading, shooting, split-second reactions and impishness are precisely what the Ballon d’Or was invented to venerate.
Benzema makes football beautiful, in the truest sense of the word. Like great art, opera and cinema, watching him makes the senses soar. But anyone who doesn’t see the connection between his partnership with Vinicius, as searingly unlikely as it is, and the Frenchman’s elevation to a footballing level that surpasses anything he’s produced in his already sumptuous career hasn’t been paying proper attention — or doesn’t understand football.
– Marcotti: Real’s grit is pushing them to LaLiga title
– O’Hanlon: How Benzema replaced Ronaldo, Messi in LaLiga (E+)
Please tell me you were watching Real Madrid’s latest battle from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Sevilla on Sunday (stream the replay on ESPN+ in the U.S.)? Although the arithmetic doesn’t yet support this claim, it was the victory that guaranteed Madrid will be champions of LaLiga. Moreover, it was a performance to warn Manchester City that despite them starting as favourites next week in the Champions League semifinal, Pep Guardiola’s English champions have been…
Source : espn
