In a press release published this Sunday, June 4, Real Madrid announced the departure of Karim Benzema.
[Updated June 4, 2023 12:45 PM] Karim Benzema will not play at Real Madrid next season. Indeed, this Sunday, June 4, the Madrid club announced the departure of the French striker, in a press release: “Real Madrid CF and our captain Karim Benzema have agreed to end his brilliant and unforgettable period as a player. of our club.”
Arrived in 2009, from Lyon, at only 21 years old, Karim Benzema left his mark on Real Madrid and La Liga. During the fourteen seasons spent in the Spanish capital, KB9 won a record 25 titles: 5 European Cups, 5 Club World Cups, 4 European Super Cups, 4 Leagues, 3 King’s Cups and 4 Super Spanish Cups. He thus became the best player in the world in 2022, winning the Ballon d’Or
At the end of the contract in June, Karim Benzema appeared 647 times in the Merengue jersey, he is the second all-time top scorer for Real Madrid with 353 goals, also the second all-time scorer for Real Madrid in the league and in the European Cup.
This Tuesday, June 6, Real Madrid announced that an “institutional act of homage and farewell to Karim Benzema will take place at Real Madrid City, with the presence (of) President Florentino Pérez.”
Short biography of Karim Benzema. Karim Benzema is a French international footballer who plays as a centre-forward. Revealed at Olympique Lyonnais, the player has distinguished himself for several seasons in the Spanish club Real Madrid. He is also an important member of the France team despite the many controversies he has been the subject of.
Coming from the Lyon training center, the young Karim Benzema donned the jersey of the Olympique Lyonnais first team in 2005. Talented, the striker forged a solid experience under the orders of coach Gérard Houiller.
With his teammates, Karim Benzema has a string of goals and contributes to the many French championship titles won by the club. It was therefore natural that he was called up to the France team in 2007. But his difficult relationship with coach Raymond Domenech prevented him from fully developing. The player’s behavior is also singled out at his club, so Karim Benzema decides to try his luck elsewhere.
In 2009, the center forward joined the Real Madrid club. His transfer is estimated at 35 million euros. But the debut in the Madrid jersey is not easy. His coach, Manuel Pellegrini preferring striker Gonzalo Higuain, Karim Benzema spends more time on the sidelines than on the pitch.
In 2010, José Mourinho took over the reins of the merengue club and pushed the French footballer to his limits, not hesitating to take him to task in the press. But Karim Benzema does not let himself be destabilized and works. His efforts paid off as he finished as the club’s second top scorer with 26 goals in all competitions, just behind club star Cristiano Ronaldo.
The 2011/2012 season gives the striker a new dimension. Karim Benzema is rewarded with an undisputed starting place. On many occasions, the footballer is decisive so that the Spanish press regularly calls him a savior. Nicknamed Karim Benzegoal, the center-forward is crowned top French scorer in the history of Real Madrid ahead of the illustrious Zinedine Zidane. The center-forward won the Champions League four times between 2014 and 2018 and a La Liga in 2017, during one of the most prosperous periods for the Merengue club.
If success is at the rendezvous on the Iberian Peninsula, the player is struggling to shine in the France team. He will even hold the sad record of 1,222 minutes spent without scoring a goal. In 2014, he returned to the nets and flew to the World Cup in Brazil where France lost in the quarter-finals. In 2021, the French striker is now one of Real Madrid’s captains. He notably scored the 1000th goal in the history of Real Madrid in the Champions League in 2021. He won the Champions League again with the Merengue in 2022.
It is on the strength of an exceptional season that Karim Benzema receives the Ballon d’Or on Monday, October 17, 2022. The Real Madrid striker then adds his name to the prestigious list of winners; the one where the French Zidane, Kopa, Platini and Papin appear, the one where all the children playing football dream of appearing one day. Upon receiving his trophy, handed over to his mentor, model and former coach Zizou, the center-forward, back with the Blues after a long period of estrangement, will deliver a remarked speech.
“I think back to all the work done, I never gave up because it was a childhood dream. I grew up with that in my head. And the two models in my life, Zizou and Ronaldo, have gave me motivation. […] There were more difficult times for me. Periods when, for example, I was not in the selection. I worked a lot in training and my coach told me to keep my joy to play and, one day, I would win that trophy. I’m proud of my journey. And, like I said, it’s been difficult. For my parents, for my family… But it didn’t only strengthens me mentally,” said Karim Benzema.
And to add: ‘I will continue like this, I would like to thank my teammates, my great president Florentino Perez. He was always straight with me. I don’t forget (Jean-Michel) Aulas and Olympique Lyonnais, without them I couldn’t have achieved my dream. This Ballon d’Or is individual, but it’s still the Ballon d’Or of the people. I think there is no age. After their thirties, many level up. It’s determination, work. I train a lot more, I tell myself that we must not let go. I still have ambition, I would like to win the World Cup with the France team because these are things that remain. I hope to be in the group in Qatar, in any case it’s objective because I have great confidence in myself, I have ambition. I want to go to the World Cup and do everything to win it”
A little later, in the evening, Karim Benzema expressed himself in a more relaxed manner, agreeing to say a few words to the journalists present to cover the event. In a press conference, first, the player who has become a multi-millionaire explained his formula for the “People’s Golden Ball”. : “There is nothing political. It’s just a reference to where I come from, to all my fans who have supported me at all times, even in difficult times. I want to share this trophy with them because I love sharing and they deserve it”. A little later, he added, “Let’s say it’s the best day of my life.”
Karim Benzema has been playing with a major bandage in his hand for several years. A strap that we put on him before each match and which is not without raising some questions. Benzema actually suffered a hand injury in January 2019, during a La Liga match against Betis Seville. After contact, the Madrid striker then fell and landed badly on the right hand. Race record: fractured little finger. That day, Karim Benzema, steeped in pain, will be unable to finish the game. He will however be aligned the following days, his coach at the time, Santiago Solari, judging the fracture not very problematic for his immediate performances, as for the rest of his career.
According to Le Figaro who recalled the anecdote, Karim Benzema has never taken the time to treat this little finger deformed by the shock! Which explains this impressive bandage that wraps a good part of his hand in every game since. The return to the France team and Benzema’s participation in the Euro in 2021 will have further delayed the deadline. Unless Benzema ended up seeing this bandage as a kind of lucky charm…
Present at Real Madrid since 2009, the striker has often extended his contract. Put in competition several times, Benzema has always been able to keep his starting place in Madrid. In 2019, he receives a salary of 10 million euros, which makes him one of the highest paid French people in the world.
Karim Benzema had a daughter, Mélia, in February 2014 with a young nurse, Chloé de Launay. However, the couple separated two years later. Since then, the Frenchman has had a romance with a model Cora Gauthier, who gave him a son, named Ibrahim. The Frenchman doesn’t like to expose his private life, but during the 2022 Ballon d’Or ceremony, the Frenchman showed up alongside American model Jordan Ozuna.
If he considers that the Benzema case is behind him, it is because Didier Deschamps has already given a long interview to Le Figaro and Le Parisien on Friday March 10. An interview in which the coach explained the hasty departure of the striker from Qatar due to a muscle tear just before the start of the 2022 World Cup.
“Karim is bruised because this World Cup meant a lot to him”, judged the coach who gave his account of the events: “He said to me: ‘It’s dead’. The diagnosis of our doctor joins the one we gave him gave to Madrid. We stayed together for about twenty minutes. When I left him, I said to him: ‘Karim, there is no rush. You organize your return with the team manager.’ When I woke up, I learn that he is gone. It is his decision, he will not tell you otherwise, I understand and respect it”.
According to Didier Deschamps, there was therefore no problem with the striker he went to see before his departure from the base camp of the Blues in Qatar in November. On this occasion the coach would have explained to Benzema that he was not obliged to leave the rally so quickly. The boss of the Blues even indicated that he wanted a tribute to be paid to all the “retirees” during France – Netherlands on March 24.
If there is a tribute, not sure to see Karim Benzema there. Because faced with the words of Didier Deschamps, the captain of Real Madrid has posted several unfriendly stories towards the coach of the Blues on his Instagram account. The first was fraught with a “What audacity”, clearly implying that the 1998 world champion had lied. Karim Benzema also indicated that he was going to explain himself “for the people”, a formula he has launched regularly in recent months.
In the meantime and in front of the many unspoken, some are annoyed, like Bixente Lizarazu on the Téléfoot set on Sunday March 12. “I can’t take it anymore! It’s been going on for too long. It’s a permanent misunderstanding between the two. Now it’s the end of Karim Benzema’s international career. We understood that there was a problem between the two, that they could not speak to each other, to understand each other. We see it once again in this affair, “said the former side.
Just before the knockout round of the Champions League against Liverpool, Carlo Ancelotti, the coach of Real, indicated that this situation had no effect on his captain. “It’s a personal matter. I respect them both a lot, Didier Deschamps also played for me (at Juventus Turin in 1999). But it’s a subject that Karim doesn’t talk about at all, so I don’t think not that it affects him, not at all.”
In any case, there is little chance of ever seeing Karim Benzema in the France team again. On December 19, 2022, Real Madrid number 9 announced on his social media that his story with the Blues was “over”. An announcement that surprised, since the Lyonnais had never seemed as strong as the previous season. This early international retirement is not illogical, however, given the level of animosities accumulated during the 2022 World Cup between the striker and the staff of the Blues.
Barely arrived in Qatar with his teammates, Karim Benzema had been hit in the thigh in training, just three days before the start of the Blues against Australia. Injury which will have led to a withdrawal from the Ballon d’Or for the whole of the competition and to a hasty departure of the player in still mysterious conditions.
According to the newspaper L’Equipe, the relationship between the Madrilenian and Didier Deschamps, already complex, would have deteriorated considerably behind the scenes following this injury: the player would have liked to do everything possible with the medical staff of the Blues to be available for the final phase of the competition. What Didier Deschamps would have refused, considering that the group dynamic takes place without the absentees.
According to Foot Mercato, the medical team of the Blues wanted to carry out a complete check-up for Karim Benzema, in order to have all the necessary certainties on his state of form. But the Real Madrid player did not want to comply. According to the media, the staff of the Blues would then have developed some doubts about the sincerity of the Madrid player.
It is in any case these tensions around the physical state of the player which have, by snowball effect – and undoubtedly by disagreement or lack of communication, resulted in a definitive rupture. While we were expecting a quick comeback, just after the competition in Doha, Karim Benzema finally said stop.
The relationship between Didier Deschamps and the Real Madrid star has actually been tense for many years, the quarrel between the two men dating back at least until 2016, when the coach decided to do without the Real striker for the Europe championship. Karim Benzema was then cited in the resounding case of sextape blackmail aimed at his teammate in the France team Mathieu Valbuena. He will be indicted for “complicity in attempted blackmail and participation in a criminal association” and placed under judicial control prohibiting him from any contact with Mathieu Valbuena. Karim Benzema has since been sentenced in November 2021 to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 75,000 euros for complicity in attempted blackmail by the Versailles Criminal Court.
The absence of Benzema in Blue will fuel controversy for years, between the supporters of Didier Deschamps and those of the player. Didier Deschamps will indicate that he broke ties with the Madrilenian after the latter accused him of having “gave in to a racist part of France”. But the coach, who was thought to be inflexible on the subject, will finally recall Karim Benzema in Blue a few weeks before Euro 2021, almost six years after his last match.
Didier Deschamps will explain to TF1 that he had a long conversation with Karim Benzema before making this decision. “We saw each other, we discussed at length. It was the most important step,” he said, refusing to reveal a word of the discussion. “I had a long reflection on a lot of things to come to this decision […]. He needed it, I needed it. We always aspire to have the most peaceful climate possible”, then declared the double world champion who nevertheless remained cautious, concluding that “the slightest spark” could “have important consequences”. The sign of a fragile reconciliation turned premonition.
After the fiasco of Euro 2021, with the elimination against Switzerland in the round of 16, then on the sidelines of the World Cup 2022, the hitches will multiply. Didier Deschamps would have been particularly offended by the attitude of Benzema, who did not have a word for the coach during his speech at the time of the presentation of his Ballon d’Or in October 2022. For his part, the forward -center would have multiplied the vexations, up to criticizing the FFF for the lack of interest in him and several statements by Didier Deschamps concerning him in Qatar.
The Real Madrid star will refuse the invitation of the FFF and Emmanuel Macron to attend the Blues final on December 18 in Doha. And the player’s communication will once again be controversial on the eve of the shock against Argentina. Sparse in messages of support during the competition, Benzema will publish a photo of him pouting, with this comment: “It doesn’t interest me”. What mortgage a little more his future in Blue.
Did Karim Benzema draw a line under the French team for a personal problem with Didier Deschamps? Gray areas still remain. From a sporting point of view, Didier Deschamps may also have considered that everything is easier without Karim Benzema, as L’Equipe wrote on December 20. “Was the plan to recall Benzema after this World Cup, when Kylian Mbappé has definitely taken the lead on the pitch? And the two no longer have much affinity, after the alliance of circumstance at the start? We will never know, even if we have a small idea. If he extends with the Blues, the coach will not even have to ask himself these questions. He will be able to rebuild around the Parisian star and the golden youth, who did not need the light of a Ballon d’Or to shine in Qatar”, could we read in the columns of Daily Sports.
