Get French Football News
·15 January 2022
Get French Football News
·15 January 2022
Having been named French player of the year by France Football, Karim Benzema discussed his style of play with the publication, explaining: “I remain the same player.”
Do you think you’re appreciated fully now?“Let’s say I’m appreciated by a lot more people. But, apart from a statistical point of view, scoring more goals, I don’t see what I’ve changed in my game. Movement, giving assists, playing in attack, taking one touch – I’ve known how to do these things for a long time and I’ve always done them. I remain the same player.”
“We don’t consume football like we used to. We don’t stay in front of a game for ninety minutes anymore. With social media you can follow everything on your phone, you see the goals… We no longer bother to look at what a player is doing on the pitch, only who has scored. The next day, we consider the latter to be the most important. It’s happened to me before. I don’t play well, I score and I’m seen as the best. I don’t really like it, but, in the future, it’ll become more and more like that. It has become a sport where we look at statistics, you have to adapt to it and I’ve adapted very well.”
Do you consider yourself a different, unique player?“Yes. We can say it like that, clearly. I don’t play like a number nine who stays in the box, but I know how to do it. I don’t play like a number nine who just drops deep, but I know how to do it. I know how to do everything. It’s the result of a lot of work. So unique, yes. I grew up watching Ronaldo, the Brazilian striker, and, in my eyes, he could do it all.”
Some see you as a mix between Ronaldo and Zidane…“I took a lot of things from these two players, almost everything. From Zizou, for example, his control – he knew when to make the right pass and the right dribble. Ronaldo, I rather remember the risk-taking, the dribbling, the goals.”
Since the start of your career, which players have you had the most fun playing with?“Cristiano, Mesut Özil, Juninho, Fred [in Lyon] and Zizou in training too. Technical players. That’s football, you make the call, the ball comes, you give it to him, he gives it to you…”
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