This morning, the first leg of the Champions League semi-final began, and Manchester City took home to the challenge of Real Madrid. In the end, thanks to the achievements of De Bruyne, B seat, Jesus and Foden, Manchester City scored four goals at home.
However, such eye-catching attacking stats do not guarantee that they will advance to the final, for the simple reason that Real Madrid have Benzema.
Despite the team's poor performance in this game, Benzema made up for it with his brilliant play on the offensive end. The French star scored twice, including a brilliant spoon penalty, to keep real madrid's hopes of qualifying.
Looking through this season, Benzema's "savior in danger" has been staged many times, and the 34-year-old veteran who should have embarked on a downward career has instead bloomed with unparalleled brilliance.
So far, Benzema has made 29 appearances in the league, scoring 25 goals and 11 assists, including La Liga top scorers and assists; in the Champions League, Benzema has not only staged back-to-back hat-tricks in the knockout rounds, but has also scored 14 goals in 10 Champions League games, surpassing Levan to the top of the Champions League top scorers list.
With 41 goals and 13 assists in 41 games, Benzema has become one of the most stunning goalscorers in world football this season.
In fact, if the timeline is turned forward, the second spring of Benzema's career will quietly begin in the 18th and 19th seasons.
In the 2018-19 season, Benzema made 53 appearances for the Whites in all competitions, scoring 30 goals and 10 assists; Benzema also completed 27 goals and 11 assists in the 19th-20th season; and in the 20th-21st season, Although Benzema's assists were not double-doubled, his goal count once again reached 30, and helped the team to break through in the face of injury.
When did Benzema's metamorphosis begin? 】
The German transfer market counted the goals and assists scored by Benzema at Real Madrid before and after Cristiano Ronaldo's departure.
According to the data, since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema has scored 124 goals in the following 177 games, averaging 0.7 assists per game, completing 44 assists, averaging 0.24 per game; during the period with Cristiano Ronaldo, the Frenchman scored 192 goals in 335 games, completed 113 assists, averaging 0.57 goals per game, and averaging 0.33 assists per game.
Overall, after Ronaldo left the team, Benzema's average goal per game increased by 0.13, and the average number of assists per game fell by 0.09.
Of course, it wasn't Ronaldo who hindered Benzema's upward trajectory. Benzema once said in an interview that Ronaldo's goals are 3 times or even 4 times his, so the two sides do not care about competition. Benzema confessed: "There is no competition between me and Ronaldo, you have to change the game, and that's what I've done, to score goals. ”
With a phenomenal goalscorer like Cristiano Ronaldo by his side, Rao benzema is already talented and willing to make concessions: "If I have the opportunity to shoot, but Ronaldo is in a better position, I will pass the ball to him because I am sure he will score. ”
With a few words, the years of debate surrounding the two men were resolved.
Benzema and C Ronaldo have never had any "restriction on play", and some have only achieved each other's mutual fulfillment: C Ronaldo has brought one championship after another to Real Madrid with an efficient goal scoring rate, while Benzema has tempered the survival law of "green leaves" and opened a new era of career.
When C Ronaldo left and Real Madrid lacked a backbone in the forward line, Benzema also dared to take over the "cauldron" and show his killer nature again.
[Can be green leaf, can also be a sharp knife]
As a center forward, Benzema's growth trajectory is undoubtedly different from ordinary people. A striker tends to peak at the age of 26-28 and gradually goes downhill after the age of 30, but Benzema set the peak of his career at the age of 34.
In the middle of nearly 10 years, Benzema is a green leaf, a foil, with the spirit of dedication to achieve Ronaldo's stunning goal data - 18-19 season, Benzema's highest number of goals in a single season was 32, which also occurred in the distant 2011-12 season; from the beginning of the 16-17 season, Benzema's goals in two consecutive seasons failed to exceed 20, and the number of goals scored in a single season in the 17-18 season was only 12.
Cristiano Ronaldo's highlights have left Benzema's offensive stats not so much in the spotlight, but it has still been criticized by some fans. What's more, benzé circus is referred to as "Zidane's relation".
Indeed, even Benzema's previously most glorious single-season 32 goals in all competitions, la Liga, which has both Ronaldo and Messi, is not top-notch. In the la Liga top scorers list that season, Benzema was also lined up by Messi (50 goals), Cristiano Ronaldo (46 goals), Falcao (24 goals) and Higuain (22 goals).
When Benzema scored just five goals in a single season in La Liga (2017-18), doubts about him came like waves.
People's praise for Real Madrid's "Champions League" is more focused on Ronaldo's stable output, the overall scheduling of the ceremony midfield and Bale's flash in the final.
Benzema, on the other hand, still plays a green leafy role - in the Champions League final of the 13-14 season, Benzema was replaced in the 79th minute; in the Champions League final of the 15th to 16th season; Benzema was replaced in the 77th minute; in the Champions League final of the 16th to 17th season, Benzema was replaced in the 77th minute.
With 0 goals and 0 assists in three Champions League finals, Benzema did give some extreme fans an opportunity.
Fortunately, Karius gave Benzema a "breathing machine".
In the Champions League final of the 17th and 18th seasons, Real Madrid played against Liverpool led by Klopp. In the 51st minute of the match, Liverpool goalkeeper Karius was ready to restart the organization by throwing the ball by hand. But what people did not expect was that he threw the ball straight to Benzema in front of him, who used his right foot to gently block the ball into the empty goal.
Karius's operation seems to have opened up the second vein of Rendu for Benzema, and the "down-intellectual striker" has been gradually tempered.
[Diligence + ball quotient, Benzema's success is not "metaphysics"]
Valdés also had a "wisdom reduction operation"
Karius, Urreich, Mendy, Donnarumma, and even Valdés all had embarrassing low-level mistakes in front of Benzema. Many fans attribute this to Benzema's "destiny" and even portray him as a "metaphysical striker".
Is this really the case?
Watching Benzema's game in detail, all his achievements cannot be summed up in a simple "metaphysics". A diligent runner and an outstanding ball dealer, the 34-year-old Benzema is writing his great cause with sweat.
Let's take the goal scored by Benzema "picking up the leak", for example. In the semi-finals of the Champions League in the 17th and 18th seasons, in the face of Bayern's backward foot in the backcourt, Benzema basically adopted the tactical strategy of "pressing if you can force it, and blocking it if you can't force it". In the 46th minute of the match, Tolisso was unable to continue forward under the pockets of several Real Madrid players and chose to pass the ball back to goalkeeper Urreich.
According to the rolling route of the ball, Although torriso's return pass was too small, Ulreich only needed to make a slight blow to unblock the ball. At this moment, Benzema's aggressive pressing made the inexperienced goalkeeper of the competition chaotic - before trying to hold the ball, Ulreich suddenly realized that this would cause a violation, and actually made the ball leak, and Benzema won the empty goal.
In the Champions League final against Liverpool, Benzema remains one of the most aggressive players. When Karius had already held the ball, Benzema did not retreat like a regular striker, but continued to pressure it, this kind of pressing may not be successful for many forwards in their careers, but the slim chance was met by Benzema in the Champions League final - Karius's hand throwing the ball directly to Benzema's feet, the classic picture of the Champions League is written.
In the second leg of this season's Champions League quarter-finals, the newly promoted European Cup goalkeeper Donnarumma actually followed in Karius's footsteps.
As shown in the picture, when Donnarumma took the ball, Benzema, who was still far outside the penalty area, started to approach him at high speed, perhaps because he was too contemptuous of Benzema's enthusiasm for pressing, Donnarumma actually chose to get rid of the person on the edge of the small penalty area, and the final pass came to the feet of the Real Madrid players. At this time, Benzema quickly closed in near the penalty spot after the successful pressing, and successfully received the cross and broke the goal.
This season's Champions League quarter-finals against Chelsea, the popular Mendy has not escaped the "curse of wisdom reduction". Facing a sharp strike of Mendy, Benzema began to accelerate from his own half, high-speed pressing to make Mendy make mistakes in passing, Benzema quickly pressed Chelsea receiver Rudiger, and finally successfully broke the ball and hit the empty goal.
Against Manchester City this morning, Benzema also almost made a miracle for the team with a forced rush. As shown in the figure, Benzema combined "diligence + ball quotient" in this rush, he did not press the first time Ederson took the ball, but when Vinicius basically blocked Ederson's left and center pass route, he was the first to realize Ederson's right passing choice, and timely pressed to restrict Ruben Díaz's turn with the ball, successfully creating a killing machine.
This "leak picking" seems simple, but it is actually a double performance of diligence and ball quotient.
On the one hand, Benzema did not neglect his physical training because of his age, and he is still able to maintain a high-intensity rhythm of 90 minutes of competition with reasonable distribution of physical fitness. Therefore, Benzema's large-scale running in the front field can often support him to find loopholes that are difficult for ordinary people to find, and finally a fatal blow.
On the other hand, Benzema is not just a "rough guy" who only knows how to bow his head and do it. While supporting a large area of running with diligence, the French striker also has the top ball business consciousness in football.
Benzema once revealed his game experience in an interview with the French media: "I know how to deal with Paris, that is, to press them, to squash their formation, not to let them launch a counterattack, they have nothing to do, we have to force him to play slower." 」 ”
Benzema also said: "I watched a few games where Paris lost in Ligue 1, and once their formation was oppressed and they fell behind, they would collapse and tell themselves that they were going to lose, and this happened to them many times, their mental will was very weak, they would easily give up the game. ”
Whether it is the examination of his own tactics or the thorough understanding of the opponent's tactics, Benzema has evidence to rely on while forcing, and finally writes a picture that is enough to circulate the classics.
【A model of a technical center forward】
As a center forward, Benzema has enviable foot skills, whether it is with teammates in a small range of 2 to 3 people, or completely rely on personal ability to break through, Benzema has something remarkable. Some people call him "the first pseudo-9 in football", which is indeed very appropriate.
Alain Shearer said bluntly in his column: Benzema is undoubtedly a great technical center, and it is because of his excellent technical ability that he can find his best in the game, which has scored so many goals in the past few years.
The outstanding technology under his feet has been reflected in Lyon, after coming to Real Madrid, many years of gandang green leaves have not worn away his technical characteristics, but let Benzema adapt to different tactical patterns, and can still play its technical characteristics to the fullest in the complicated situation.
As can be seen from Benzema's season heatmap, he is not a traditional column center, but prefers to take the ball in a large area of retraction, and can even complete an organizational schedule similar to that of a top midfielder in the depth area.
Benzema's "one-in-one" combination with Vinicius has shined this season. Many times, the young and impactful Vinicius became the arrow of Real Madrid's attacking formation, and Benzema used the deep retraction for a long time to participate in the organization and dispatch.
Benzema's technical superiority has allowed him to effectively relieve the pressure of the midfield in both counter-attack and positional warfare, and his average of key passes per game this season has reached 2 times, which can rank first among all players in the same position; in addition, Benzema has created 12 excellent scoring opportunities in the league, which is the "king of killing machines" in the Real Madrid team.
Pull the edges to respond
After plugging in broken Paris
Of course, Benzema's large drawback did not affect his goal efficiency. On the contrary, with the impact coverage of players such as Vinicius in the front, the Frenchman can get more flexible running space, whether it is an internal cut attempt after taking the ball on the wing, or a fatal blow on the high-speed back, which is Benzema's best play.
【Top Efficiency】
Some centre-forwards, clinging to the penalty area to score goals, are praised by the world; some centre-forwards are unusual, more like the image of the organizer. Benzema's rise to fame in recent seasons is a combination of the two: the deep drawdown has made him one of the most well-rounded centre-forwards in world football today, but it hasn't buried his true colors, and the France international can come forward when the team needs him to attack the city.
Benzema's chance-taking ability in La Liga this season is 50%, which is only 21st among all la Liga centre-forwards. But Benzema was able to score so many goals against the backdrop of pulling out of the box for a long time (1st in the same position) and 1.9 shots per game (1st in the same position).
In the Champions League, Benzema's ability to score goals shows no signs of deteriorating. He has scored a back-to-back hat-trick in the Champions League knockout stages this season, scoring 14 goals in 10 Champions League games, further narrowing his distance from Levan in the champions league's all-time top scorer list (only 1 goal remains today).
Specifically, Benzema scored 42 shots on goal in 10 games, averaging 4.2 shots per game and 2.1 shots per game, essentially extending his good form in the league to the continental arena. It is worth mentioning that Benzema's ability to grasp opportunities in the Champions League is even more dazzling, so far he has only wasted two scoring opportunities, which is a solid reliance on Real Madrid to overcome many adversities.
【Conclusion】
Benzema's success is not accidental, he has the talent of young fame, but also has the mentality of tempering under pressure, in the years when Real Madrid and C Ronaldo partnered, his game experience and ball business awareness have been qualitatively improved. Today, Benzema has proved to the world that he is fully capable of playing the top pillar of the giants, and the "most comprehensive center in football" has been formed.
Despite failing to win the first leg against Manchester City, three goals still allowed Real Madrid to maintain a good chance of promotion. Back at home, Benzema will remain the key player in determining the outcome of the game. At the same time, when he gave one phenomenal performance after another, the light of the Golden Globes also quietly descended. Whether we can achieve a great harvest of team honor and individual honor at the age of 34, let's wait and see.