Benzema shows what Blues lack
KARIM BENZEMA represented a clear and present danger to Manchester City’s quest to put one foot in the Champions League final last night. Recognising the problem and finding a way to stop it are two very different things.
The 33rd-minute goal which gave Real Madrid a foothold in a manic tie was vintage Benzema, the late dinked penalty a touch of pure class and more of the same in an extraordinary season.
He only needed an inch but took a mile, stealing in front of Oleksandr Zinchenko to deflect Ferland Mendy’s cross expertly into the corner with his left foot.
It could have been his right. Or his head. This season every weapon is firing to equally devastating effect.
The sturdy Frenchman had scored 44 goals in 47 games for club and country going into last night’s game.
That includes hat-tricks against Paris SaintGermain and Chelsea in the last two rounds and is remarkable given that at 34 he might have been expected to be heading out to pasture. Maybe the presence alongside him of 36-year-old Luka Modric, above, keeps him young.
It was astonishingly his ninth Champions League semi-final – equalling the record for a single club held by his old team-mate Sergio Ramos and Barcelona’s Xavi – and his 600th in all for Real, but his output improves. Flaring pace of the kind Vinicius Jnr possesses has never been his thing but he has a bloodhound’s nose for a gap which seems to have heightened with age. It must have helped that, unlike the rest of us, he has lost weight as he has grown older – half a stone has been shed in his 30s – without losing power.
The circular debate over City’s need or otherwise for an out-and-out striker took another turn with his presence in Manchester last night – especially as Pep Guardiola went for his nearest equivalent by using Gabriel Jesus down the middle. That did not go too badly with another goal for the in-form Brazilian but he is not a de facto leader of the line like Benzema.
After their failure to land Harry Kane last summer, City have got by without an equivalent arrowhead. The fact that they are still in the running for the two biggest trophies would suggest they have more than got by but a ruthless finisher, you suspect, is the final piece of the jigsaw - hence the pursuit of Erling Haaland.
For the time being it is a case of making the most of what they have – and hoping Benzema and his rapid mate to his left do not bring the chickens home to roost in the second leg.