Karim Benzema is the new Ballon dOr king
Karim Benzema became the fifth French player to win the Ballon d'Or, after winning it for the first time in his career, on Monday, during the ceremony held in the French capital, Paris.
The Real Madrid striker was able to get the award after beating Sadio Mane and Kevin De Bruyne in addition to Robert Lewandowski.
Raymond Kopa was the first French player to receive the award presented by "France Football" magazine in 1958, before the legendary Michel Platini won it for three consecutive seasons "in 1983, 1984 and 1985".
As for the 1998 World Cup star, Zinedine Zidane, the last Frenchman to win the award in the same year as the World Cup, French football waited 24 years until Benzema came and won the prestigious award and broke the long period of time.
French Karim Benzema waited 13 years to be able to carry the banner of stardom and shine in the mother team Real Madrid, after spending a long period in the shadow of his former colleague Cristiano Ronaldo, who left the Spanish capital team in the summer of 2018 during the World Cup in Russia, to provide Benzema with the opportunity to play the role of stardom.
On Monday, the 34-year-old striker was crowned with the prestigious Golden Ball award from the French magazine "France Football" for the best player in the world, brilliant against Senegalese Sadio Mane, Belgium's Kevin De Bruyne, and Poland's Lewandowski.
Benzema was keen to be in the shadow of Portuguese star Ronaldo, who sued for a long time in very strong competition with Argentine Messi, for individual awards, as Ronaldo managed to achieve the Golden Ball 5 times, compared to 7 times the Barcelona legend and the current player of Paris Saint-Germain.
After Ronaldo left for Juventus and from there to Manchester United, Benzema was able to control and lead the Real Madrid attack and raise the scoring results, as he became the second top scorer in the club's history behind Ronaldo, "with 450 goals", compared to "328 goals" for the French in 614 games, knowing that Benzema fled Ronaldo has 47 assists.
Benzema stated on the issue of his success after the departure of Ronaldo, saying: It is true that his departure had an impact and a feeling of lack on the team, but now I managed to score a lot of goals, Ronaldo helped me a lot and when he left I had a desire to change my style and ambition and I think I did it successfully.
Zidane said that he will continue to support the French top scorer at a conference in 2017, justifying that: Karim Benzema is one of the most important Real players ever and I will defend him until death, as he does everything he is asked and supports the team a lot in building attacks and he is not required to score in every A match, and unfortunately, many look at him or evaluate his performance on the basis of scoring goals and this is completely wrong in football, and for me as a coach, Benzema is a very important and irreplaceable player and I know that
