All rise! After hearing the growing case against Karim Benzema, we now call the defense to the stands.

There are a lot of myths about Karim Benzema, myths about his quality, his lifestyle and his commitment to the badge. Some of these myths are merely outdated while other are simply flat out lies.

Below, I will tackle some of the Frenchman’s detractors most popular arguments and convince you that the Big Benz is the best option for Real Madrid, even if this is at the expense of Kylian Mbappé.

Benzema is Lazy

Benzema’s work rate has been questioned since he joined the club in 2009, and rightfully so. The forward was quite a stagnant player in his first 18 months at the club, choosing to remain central and wait for the ball to come to him.

It wasn’t just on the pitch that Benzema appeared to lack commitment, off the pitch he skipped Spanish classes and was a distant figure in the dressing room. In 2010, Jose Mourinho publicly criticized Benzema’s commitment to the club, famously saying that playing the Frenchman was like going hunting with his cat.

Fortunately, the striker changed his game around with the assistance of future coach, Zinedine Zidane. Following an injury to Mourinho’s preferred striker, Gonzalo Higuaín, Benzema took up a starting berth and never looked back scoring 26 goals during the 2010-11 season. Benzema spent that summer in a health club in France, returning for the competitive season 8 pounds lighter.

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What does Benzema do at Real Madrid?

For a member of one of Europe’s most infamous strike forces, Karim Benzema doesn’t score many goals. The former Lyon striker has broken 20 goals in a season just twice in his entire Madrid career. Following this past season, there were calls for Alvaro Morata to replace Benzema as the main striker, however, Zidane opted for Benzema. Despite not being in his best form last year, Zidane’s decision was quite wise when wanalyzese what Benzema brings to the team.

Here we see the heat map of Alvaro Morata in Real Madrid’a 5-2 victory over Osasuna last season. Below is Ronaldo’s heat map in the very same game:

You may have noticed that both of these heat maps are very similar. When you look at the heat maps of Alvaro Morata and Ronaldo in this particular game combined, It looks like this:

Morata and Cristiano occupy the same space in the box. In a 4-3-3 this is important as it means that just one of the team’s wingers is dedicated to supplying and the midfielders are now required to work harder as they don’t have a striker to link up play between the midfield and forward line.

This isn’t an isolated incidence, although Ronaldo and Morata didn’t play many meaningful minutes together this season, when they did, the heat maps look identical. Here are their heat maps for Madrid’s 2-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao this season.

This has been a problem with any true forward that tries to play at Real Madrid. This is the heat map of Javier Hernandez and Ronaldo in Real’s 2-2 draw against Valencia in 2015:

Meanwhile, if we look at Benzema’s heat maps with Ronaldo for these games (barring the Valencia games which he was injured for):

Conclusions

It will take a better statistical analyst than me to prove that Benzema is the perfect striker for Real Madrid. For the most part, I have found that Ronaldo and Benzema perfectly compliment each other.

Benzema is willing to sacrifice his personal advancement so Ronaldo – among the games greatest ever goalscorers – can lead the team to glory. No performance proves me more right than the Champions League Final. I have linked a video of Benzema during the final, pay attention to how often he is the deeper member of the duo and how often he drifts wide to cover for Ronaldo when Ronaldo drifts centrally.

This is a unique partnership formed over nearly a decade. Now the understanding between these two players has reached physic levels.

It is spectacular and unique and Zidane sees this and more importantly Ronaldo sees it. Angel Di Maria claimed that he was on the verge of being sold by Real Madrid in 2014 before Ronaldo intervened. The Argentinian was one of the major cogs in the Madrid side that won La Decima that season, an influence that would have been sold if it wasn’t for Ronaldo’s political influence at Madrid, an influence that is surely a reason why Karim Benzema remains at the club still today.

What do you guys think? Karim Benzema in or Karim Benzema out? Let me know what you think and stay tuned to The Real Champs for more daily news and analysis!