Benzema wins 2022 Ballon d’Or!
How fitting that, on the weekend preceding his maiden Ballon d’Or victory at a ceremony in Paris on Monday, Karim Benzema scored in Real Madrid’s El Clasico victory over Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu. Another big game, another big goal, the theme of the Frenchman’s entire 2021/22 season during which he netted 15 times in the UEFA Champions League to help inspire Los Blancos to a recordextending 14th European crown. It is one the footballing world should remember and hail as an individual campaign that was as historic, iconic and important as any single season Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have had in their extraordinary careers, writes Soccer Laduma senior journalist Kurt Buckerfield.
Up there with Messi & Ronaldo
Since France Football, the organisers of the Ballon d’Or award, announced that the basis on which the accolade is judged has moved in line with the standard European season (August to May) as opposed to the calendar year, it makes sense to wonder where Karim Benzema’s 2021/22 campaign ranks among the greatest individual seasons in the past 10, 20 years. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo had plenty of them, so recency bias shouldn’t totally disillusion us, but blow for blow, it was as significant a single season as there has ever been. For many years, it seemed like football ignored Benzema. He was the technically gifted No. 9 who played second fiddle to Ronaldo, the striker who’d link play and pull defenders with him to create space for his teammates, although he did always chip in with goals of his own. Benzema didn’t beg for attention, he didn’t request more respect, but instead quietly got on with matters until he eventually became the player his colleagues would need to lean on. Today, he is a Ballon d’Or winner, a striker who has carried Real Madrid since Ronaldo’s departure in 2018, one who made fans almost totally forget that the Spanish giants forked out €115 million (R2 billion) for Eden Hazard, only for him to flop. In fact, the Belgian has been at the club since 2019 and has never played in El Clasico. If not for Benzema’s achievements, perhaps that would be a bigger story. There is something infinitely special about a footballer who, despite playing at the highest level for many, many years, continues to get better, particularly when it is a footballer the world doesn’t typically associate with having an unmoving desire to be the best in the world. Benzema’s social media accounts, where he has more than 70 million followers, portray a man with expensive taste, as did the Tupac Shakur-inspired suit he wore to the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris on Monday. He has become known for dropping fashionable videos, soundtracked by popular hip hop music, in which he is either driving top-of-the-range sports cars or flying via private jet, drenched in designer clothing and jewellery. On the inside, however, is a humble and consummate professional who continues to shine at arguably the biggest club in world football at 34 years old.
What exactly earned Benzema the award?
The 2021/22 LaLiga campaign was yet another fruitful one for Benzema, who claimed his maiden Pichichi Trophy (top goalscorer award) after he netted 27 times in 32 league outings, adding 12 assists along the way. The 97-time France international continuously showed up on big occasions throughout the course of his side’s title-winning season, never going more than two matches without a goal. Benzema was also crucial for Carlo Ancelotti’s team in the Spanish Super Cup, which is these days played in the middle of the season, as he scored in their El Clasico semi-final victory over Barcelona and in their final win over Athletic Bilbao. Wearing the captain’s armband, no player in LaLiga was more influential than Benzema, but it was in what he achieved in the previous Champions League campaign that truly separated him from his peers. After finishing the group stage with five goals in as many appearances, the Frenchman would go on to send shockwaves through Europe with his big-game performances in the knockout rounds of the tournament, displays reminiscent of the sort of influence Messi and Ronaldo previously had in the competition. Following a 1-0 loss to Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of their round of 16 tie, a 17-minute hat-trick from Benzema in the return fixture saw the Spanish giants pull off a historic comeback. Against Chelsea in the quarter-final first leg, Benzema scored yet another hat-trick before finding the net with another crucial goal in extra-time of the second leg at the Santiago Bernabeu to send Real to the last-four in a tie against Manchester City, a team heavily tipped to win the tournament. After scoring twice in a thrilling 4-3 encounter in the first leg at the Etihad Stadium, Benzema scored from the spot at home in the second leg to ensure progression once again for Ancelotti and his men. Real would go on to win the final with a 1-0 victory over Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, with Benzema later winning the Champions League Player of the Season award and the Champions League Top Goalscorer prize. He also returned to action for France in 2021, helping Les Bleus win the UEFA Nations League title.