Benzema ascends to the Olympus of the Ballon d’Or

Karim Benzema already has the Golden Ball that enthrones him as the best footballer of the 2021-22 season. At the Châtelet Theater in Paris, the striker received the prestigious prize awarded by the magazine ‘France Football’ and which honors the sensational last season completed by Bron’s striker, in which he catapulted Real Madrid to the League titles, Champions and the Spanish Super Cup with 44 goals and 15 assists in the 46 games played by the Frenchman. He thus becomes the fifth French player to achieve this recognition since the award was established in 1956 and the first to achieve it since Zinedine Zidane ascended to Olympus in 1998.

“I am very proud. I remember when I was a child, all the incessant work, and for me it was a dream like any child. I’ve always had it in my head. Then I found the motivation. I’ve had good role models in my life: Zizou, Ronaldo… It’s the result of a lot of work, training, effort… But above all, it’s pursuing a dream that I had in my head since I was a child. Everything is possible, for me it has been very difficult. I have achieved it, it has not been easy », said the great protagonist of the night after receiving the trophy from Zidane, one of his greatest supporters throughout all these years.

Radiant with happiness and visibly moved at a gala in which the world of football prostrated itself practically unanimously to his enormous talent, Benzema took over from Leo Messi, winner the previous year, after comfortably winning the votes against the Senegalese Sadio Mané and the Belgian Kevin De Bruyne, the other members of a podium whose highest step was definitively awarded once Real Madrid was proclaimed champion of Europe for the fourteenth time on May 28 at the nearby Stade de France.

The fifteen goals with which he signaled the Whites’ triumphant journey to the most magical Champions League in memory, added to the 27 goals that allowed him to become the League’s Pichichi for the first time, chiseled the definitive assault on the top of football in Benzema, a nine with the soul of a ten who, after almost a decade being Cristiano Ronaldo’s perfect squire, took advantage of the Funchal star’s departure to reclaim the status of Real Madrid’s flagship, seasoning his immense class with a goalscoring voracity typical of the greatest predators of all time and a leadership capacity that was providential for the Chamartín team to once again dominate the Old Continent with an iron fist.

Real Madrid players

Ballon d’Or winners

Franz Beckenbauer

Ronaldo Nazario

Alfredo Di Stéfano

Kevin Keegan

Karl Heinz Rummenigge

Teams that have won the most times

Real Madrid players

Ballon d’Or winners

Franz Beckenbauer

Ronaldo Nazario

Alfredo Di Stéfano

Kevin Keegan

Karl Heinz Rummenigge

Teams that have won the most times

Real Madrid players winners of the Ballon d’Or

Teams that have won the most times

Franz Beckenbauer

Ronaldo Nazario

Alfredo Di Stéfano

Kevin Keegan

Karl Heinz Rummenigge

Thirteen years after Florentino Pérez went to his residence to personally convince him that he should sign for Real Madrid and thus transform him into one of the great claims in his return to the presidency, the Lyon native shines with his own light in the Ballon winners’ list de Oro, being the eighth player from the Chamartín club to access the select club inaugurated 66 years ago by the British Stanley Matthews and whose payroll includes other divinities revered by Real Madrid such as Alfredo Di Stéfano, Raymond Kopa, Luis Figo, Ronaldo Nazário, Fabio Cannavaro, Cristiano Ronaldo or Luka Modric, all of whom lifted the trophy wearing the white jacket.

‘golden pussycat’

The tireless Croatian midfielder, awarded in 2018, was the only one who had dared to discuss the bicephaly imposed by Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi between 2008, the year in which the Portuguese added the first of the five Ballon d’Ors he treasures, and 2021, when The Argentine marked his name for the seventh time in the annals of the trophy after an edition, that of 2020, which was left vacant due to the Covid-19 pandemic and which had Robert Lewandowski as the prominent favorite.

The throne of the attacker from Rosario now passes into the hands of Benzema, a prophet in his land who follows in the footsteps of other Frenchmen such as the aforementioned Kopa (winner of the Ballon d’Or in 1958 and a member of that Real Madrid team that lifted five European Cups in consecutive), Michel Platini (triple winner in 1983, 1984 and 1985, when he was the flag player for Juventus and for France, owner of the European Championship it hosted), Jean-Pierre Papin (winner in 1991 as a star of that Olympique de Marseille who was proclaimed runner-up in Europe) and Zinedine Zidane (crowned in 1998 after winning the World Cup that year with the French team and then a Juventus figure). The player whose hunting skills José Mourinho likened to those of a cat is football’s new ‘golden pussycat’.

Classification of the Ballon d’Or 2022

1. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)

2. Sadio Mane (Liverpool/Bayern Munich)

3. Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City)

4. Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich/Barcelona)

5. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

6. Kylian Mbappe (PSG)

7. Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid)

8. Vinicius (Real Madrid)

9. Luka Modric (Real Madrid)

10. Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund/Manchester City)

11. Heung-Min Son (Tottenham)

12. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City)

13. Sebastien Haller (Ajax/Borussia Dortmund)

14. Rafael Leao (Milan)

Fabinho (Liverpool)

16. Virgil Van Dijk (Liverpool)

17. Casemiro (Real Madrid/Manchester United)

Dusan Vlahovic (Fiorentina/Juventus)

Luis Diaz (Porto/Liverpool)

20. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)

21. Harry Kane (Tottenham)

22. Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool)

Phil Foden (Manchester City)

Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)

25. Darwin Núñez (Benfica/Liverpool)

Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig)

Joao Cancelo (Manchester City)

Antonio Rudiger (Chelsea/Real Madrid)

Mike Maignan (Milan)

Joshua Kimmich (Bayern de Munich)