It took Karim Benzema only six minutes to have an impact on El Clásico.
Using the intuition all world class strikers possess, the Frenchman beat Jordi Alba to a Vinicius cross that was misjudged by the left-back. Then, with a classy touch into space and a typically cool head, he weighted a perfect cutback from the by-line that Lucas Vázquez only needed to stick a toe onto to open the scoring. A goal put on a plate for the winger.
Barcelona had barely woken up but Real Madrid’s number nine was alert from the first second. In the game where Cristiano Ronaldo so often used to make a difference in the white shirt, Benzema was the first to come out punching. It was another key moment in an excellent second half to the season that has seen Madrid’s number nine flourish after emerging from the shadow of his old team-mate.
Despite consistently holding a starting place in multiple LaLiga and European Cup-winning Madrid squads under a range of coaches, Benzema is still a divisive figure in Spain. “A centre-forward who doesn’t score goals” is the criticism often rolled out. Yet while it is true that his return has gradually declined from a high of above 30 in 2011/12 to only 12 strikes in all competition last season, it is also the case the change came in parallel to Ronaldo becoming more of a box player, and Benzema being asked to do more in his service.
Ronaldo’s departure combined with a lack of major signings up front provided the opportunity – or even necessity – for the 31-year-old to show he still has a striker’s soul left in him. The adjustment took some time: a dry spell of no league goals between mid-September and early November gave the critics the fuel they needed. In the winter something finally clicked, and the number nine is now already on 18 strikes for the season, the trend suggesting he will surely break the 20-goal mark for the first time since 2016 – and by a fair margin.
Notably, in returning to the goalscoring form of his younger years, Benzema hasn’t lost his creative influence. If anything, he is now even more consequential to Madrid’s overall play, as the game against Barça showed. He could regularly be seen dropping off the forward line and out to the wings, providing someone for Vinicius or Toni Kroos to link up with, or harrying off the ball to push Arthur all the way back into the Barça half when the Catalans were hoping to supply a second ball in from a corner.
The cherry on top of it all was the assist, his seventh of the season. The Benzema we are seeing in the Madrid shirt now is closer to the player once on show with France, both a number ten who directs the orchestra, and the supplier of the end-product needed to win games. Someone trusted with bearing the brunt of the team on his shoulders, and delivering.
The man who did that before him remains an extraordinary player, and Benzema will evidently never reach Ronaldo’s record of 18 goals against Barcelona (the former France international is on a far more human nine). But his record in general this season tells its own story, standing only one goal short of Ronaldo’s 19 strikes to date for Juve, for which the Portuguese has received so much praise.
Perhaps it’s time his old strike partner was signalled out for some true praise of his own then. Coach Santiago Solari wasn’t scared to do as much, noting last week that “Benzema has always been brilliant. He makes his team-mates better, and anyone who makes team-mates better through their talent, sacrifice, and commitment, is someone who burns with a bright light”.
A case in point is Madrid’s away goal from the Camp Nou, created by their number nine with the brain of a number 10, which gives them an excellent chance of progressing to the Copa del Rey final. The 13 LaLiga goals either created or scored by their centre-forward give them the chance to leapfrog city rivals Atlético in the league table this weekend meanwhile. That’s no small feat considering the importance of the figure they lost in the summer.
It’s Benzema’s year at the Bernabéu, and he’s starting to enjoy it.