The situation
Ancelotti maintains that “the first disappointed” with Benzema’s absences “is Karim himself” . Apart from the psychological or emotional issues of these repeated absences, which have given rise to talk because no one is aware that we are possibly facing the Frenchman’s last World Cup, there is an impenetrable fact: the one who has been harmed has been a Real Madrid team that has only been able to have his brand-new Ballon d’Or this season half the time… The numbers are there. Benzema has barely been on the pitch for 958 minutes this course of the 1,800 official minutes that Madrid has played. That is, he has only played 53 percent . It will be the fourth consecutive league game without Karim. The one of the absences of him this course began almost from the first steps of the same one. Carletto already allowed him to function at a different speed in the summer: he granted him one more week of vacation to rest his physique from last season and in fact he did not play the Classic in Las Vegas that opened the white preseason. Ancelotti denies the biggest, that Karim has put the brakes thinking of Qatar. “I don’t think it has been erased, it’s nonsense” , that’s how explicit it was this Wednesday in the previous one against Cádiz. But the fact is that Madrid does notice when its great scorer is not there. Of the 48 goals in total that Madrid have scored this season, 31 were in the 12 games in which Benzema was called up (he played all of them), which yields an average of 2.6 goals per game. Without him, that figure drops to 2.1. And if we go to the results, it is even more noticeable. The only two official defeats in this 2022-23 season occurred in Leipzig and Vallecas, with Karim watching at home on television.Coincidence or not, because in both games Madrid scored twice, but this ‘new’ Karim from the last two seasons also influences the group from his very active position as captain. In his absence, the bracelet has passed through the arms of Modric, Kroos and Nacho.
The details
Be that as it may, to see Benzema again with the white jersey we will have to wait, at least until December 30 or 31 (the exact date is yet to be determined) during the visit to Valladolid.