Karim Benzema is back in action!
The French striker has scored 17 goals in all competitions, a record equaled only by Rashford, but with a better average for the madridistas. Haaland, who has scored eight goals in the last two games he has played, remains at 15, the same as Osimehn. Mbappé stays at 14… Spring has blossomed for the best Benzema. The 35-year-old white captain started 2023 plugged in, with 10 goals in 11 games, but just before the break he went into a drought: one goal (against Liverpool at the Bernabéu) in the last five games he played before the break. Karim took advantage of the FIFA dates to tone up and the results have been immediate. Two games, two hat-tricks and a ticket to the Cup final. The 2023 Benzema looks more and more like the one who won the Ballon d’Or. He started the season on the train. Injuries made his participation intermittent in the first three months of competition. Until the World Cup he had scored 6 goals in 12 games, at an average of one goal every 159 minutes. A Karim more typical of the ‘Cristiano era’ than the leading scorer who has grown season after season after the departure of the Portuguese. The match against Valladolid with which Madrid resumed the competition on New Year’s Eve was a warning: double to say goodbye to their triumphant 2022 and put the direct in 2023 to reach the summit when the moment of truth arrives: the first leg of the round of 16 the Champions League in Liverpool . After the storm at Anfield, came the calm that has broken into thunder in the last two games. 17 goals in 18 games in 2023 and a goalscoring average of one goal every 89 minutes. A Benzema identical to that of 2021-2022 who is already fighting with Lewandowski for the Pichichi in the League. 17 goals has been scored by the Pole (who played 400 more minutes), 14 credited by the French.
The details
Benzema has sharpened his aim. So far in 2023, he averages fewer shots than in the stretch of the season that spanned 2022. But he is more effective against the rival goal .