From role player to leading man

Carlo Ancelotti is a connoisseur of life’s finer pleasures — delectable meals, slow-matured drinks, triumphal cigars — and so when a footballer puts the Real Madrid manager in mind of such fond indulgences, you can be sure it’s a truly special talent. 

Ancelotti, reflecting earlier this year on the phenomenal standards Karim Benzema was setting, compared him to an exquisite wine that improves with age. The 34-year-old striker (he turns 35 the day after the World Cup final in December) illustrated the truth of the compliment this week, becoming the oldest winner of the Ballon d’Or since England’s Stanley Matthews back in 1956.

It has been a remarkable journey for Benzema, who was just 21 when he joined Real Madrid from Lyon in 2009. During his early years, he was criticised in the Spanish capital for not making the most of his talent; there was a suspicion that he did not have the killer instinct. 

But his skill and adaptability helped him overcome the hurdles and fit into the roles various managers demanded of him — first as a decoy and feeder for Cristiano Ronaldo, and then as an integral part of the BBC trio, in which Benzema’s vision and selfless movement made sharpshooters Gareth Bale and Ronaldo even more deadly.

Coming into his own

The Frenchman truly came into his own, however, after Ronaldo’s departure for Juventus in 2018, when Benzema was 30. Emerging from the Portuguese superstar’s outsized shadow, Benzema has become Real’s figurehead, having played the lead role in two La Liga triumphs and a Champions League victory in four post-Ronaldo seasons.  

What sparked the transformation? Merely the knowledge that he was now the main man? 

“He’s a player who has a lot more responsibility, he feels much more of a leader,” Ancelotti said of his club captain. “His quality has not changed, it’s the same as it was eight years ago. But his responsibility to the team has changed. He feels more important in the team. This is what makes the difference in him, this personality.”

Zinedine Zidane, one of Benzema’s idols and under whom he really flowered at Madrid, had another explanation. Always a fan of the forward’s natural ability and intelligence, Zidane felt a focus on the physical side of things and the experience of top-level football had helped Benzema take his game to another level.

“I would say Benzema until 30, I think he had two or three kilos too many,” Zidane said. “Now he’s a real athlete, and that’s why he is one of the two or three best strikers in the world. He smells the rhythm of the game like nobody else, and something interesting we see across Europe is the oldest strikers are the most efficient… because they use every mistake of the opponent. Everything he does is intelligent. He slows down to accelerate, he accelerates and slows down.”

An increase in ambition

Benzema, for his part, said his ambition has increased with age and a change of roles.

“What has changed since I turned 30 is ambition,” Benzema said at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris. “Ambition really entered my head after that. Ambition means working harder and being a leader for my team. When I was 21, or 22, I didn’t have the same ambition I have today.”

In an interview with France Football, Benzema said, “When Ronaldo played for Real Madrid, he scored between 50 and 60 goals a year. So, you have to adapt to this reality. I had to move more on the pitch, give him space. When he left, what changed was that it was my turn to take over, score goals and provide assists to my other team-mates.”

In terms of goals, Benzema’s output has risen significantly since Ronaldo’s exit. He scored 192 goals in 412 games in major competitions for Real between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Since then, he has netted 137 times in just 204 games. It has helped, no doubt, that he gets to take penalties now; to offer a sense of how that can contribute to the overall health of a striker’s numbers, consider that Ronaldo scored an average of eight penalties per season in his nine years at Real.

Last season, which won Benzema the Ballon d’Or, saw him score 44 goals in 46 games, including 27 in LaLiga and 15 in the Champions League, both competition-leading numbers. His record in the knockout rounds of Europe’s premier competition was that of a clutch player.

Benzema scored a stunning hat-trick in 17 second-half minutes in the spectacular last-16 comeback win over Paris Saint-Germain, and another away to Chelsea in the quarterfinal first leg. It was also his extra-time goal in the return leg of that tie that nipped a Chelsea comeback in the bud, and he scored three more over both legs of the semifinal against Manchester City, including an extra-time spot-kick in the return leg which secured Real’s spot in the final.

Such has been Benzema’s influence on Real’s fortunes in recent years that club president Florentino Perez compared him to two of Madrid’s most luminous Galacticos. “He’s been the best player for the last three or four years,” Perez said. “He’s a number nine that’s a mix of Ronaldo Nazario and Zinedine Zidane. He does two jobs at once, pulling the strings in attack like Zidane and he shoots like Ronaldo did.”

Selfless on the pitch

As a playmaking killer in front of goal, Benzema is one of world football’s most complete players. His selfless work for the team and belief that football isn’t an individual sport — a point he made when collecting the Ballon d’Or, a trophy for the ‘best’ individual — make him a dream for managers; there is a reason his position was secure through the managerial churn at Real.

But Benzema isn’t as unproblematic off the field. He was frozen out of the French national team for five and a half years because of his involvement in a blackmail scandal over a sextape involving teammate Mathieu Valbuena. He was later handed a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 75,000 euros.

But the 34-year-old, who has made a comeback with the national team, wants to put the episode behind him and focus on the World Cup, which begins next month. “I don’t want to dwell on my failures,” he said. “They just give me more mental strength. I have no regrets. What happened, happened, but what matters is what is happening today. My goal is to continue to enjoy playing football, to score and make my teammates score. The World Cup is the next challenge.”