The French striker injured one of his fingers during a Betis-Madrid match in January 2019. Since then, he has worn a cumbersome bandage on his right hand.
The situation
Karim Benzema has been wearing a cumbersome bandage on his right hand for more than three years, a protection for one of his fingers that, by chance or not, has brought him fortune individually. It all started on January 13, 2019, at the Benito Villamarin in Seville, during a Betis-Real Madrid match. In an unfortunate play, after a challenge by Bartra and trying to avoid falling squarely against the grass, Benzema broke the little finger on his right hand. Already at the time, his gestures of pain were obvious and he asked for the change; he was unable to play the second half of that duel nor was he able to play the next match for Madrid , a round of 16 in the Cup against Leganés with little history, as Madrid had won 3-0 in the first leg. But he was able to play the following day in the league, against Sevilla at home. That day he premiered the bandage, a kind of amulet that did not take long to take effect: in the four subsequent games, against Girona, Espanyol, Girona again and Alavés, he scored six goals. It is manufactured in just 20 minutes and costs about 40 euros. At the time of the injury, Benzema did not undergo surgery so as not to leave his team without its most differential player in attack , although he would end up finishing the course without any of the important titles and with three different tenants on the bench (Lopetegui, Solari and Zidane).
The details
The question remained as to whether or not he had undergone surgery, since the Frenchman had not clarified it and the belief had been generated that he kept the bandage out of superstition, having coincided with his best scoring level ever. Recently, in the run-up to Real Madrid’s visit to Inter Milan in the Champions League, the Frenchman made it clear: “First I did an operation, but when you have an operation you have to be off for two months . And I wanted to continue with my teammates. I hurt myself again, but now I don’t have time to stop and go through another operation, so I play with the bandage.”