Luka Modric knew, but then so did everyone else. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and Real Madrid had just defeated Barcelona in another clásico – Rodrygo had scored, Fede Valverde had scored and Karim Benzema had scored of course – and the Croat was standing at the side of the pitch, where his teammates were celebrating their return to the top of the table. “We all know what’s going to happen and we all want it to happen and we’re very happy for Karim,” he said. “We hope that tomorrow he will win the Ballon d’Or.”
Modric, the winner in 2018, wasn’t there when Benzema boarded a plane at Barajas airport just after 3.30pm the following day, but Benzema was joined by Thibaut Courtois. The club’s president, Florentino Pérez, travelled with them. Luís Figo and Ronaldo Nazário were on board, too. They have three Ballon d’Ors between them. By the time they made the return journey, there was a fourth. Five of the past eight have made the same journey. Benzema is the first Frenchman to win it since Zinedine Zidane 24 years ago and the eighth Real Madrid player.
When Pérez went to Benzema’s house at No 33 Rue Youri Gagarin to convince him to come to Spain, he told him that he could become the best player in the world and that Real Madrid was the best place to make that happen. It has taken 14 years, and there may even be an argument that in his case being at Madrid was an obstacle at times, the shadow cast by Cristiano Ronaldo colossal, but now he is.
If there have been doubts over the years – and there have been many, many of them, Benzema clearly believing his football has been misunderstood – there were very few this time. Modric knew; the Bernabéu knew, singing him on his way with chants of Karim, Balón de Oro; everyone knew. There can have been few clearer winners.
Last season Benzema scored 44 goals in 46 games and provided 15 assists. He was top scorer in La Liga, and top scorer in the Champions League, on 15, two off the record that Ronaldo had set back when Benzema was providing for him. He won both, plus the Spanish Super Cup. He won the Nations League with France, scoring in the final and netting the goal that began the comeback against Belgium in the semi-final. Comeback: that’s a word you might have heard a bit, Benzema at the heart of probably the most absurd campaign the European Cup has seen.
If he was a Superman, and sometimes he was, his kryptonite was Osasuna’s keeper Sergio Herrera – against whom he missed two penalties in a single game last season and one this. Yet six days after those two misses in just seven minutes against Herrera, he stood on the spot at the Etihad Stadium, with time running out and the pressure on and clipped in a Panenka. It was 4-3 and somehow Madrid had life. A week later, he had another one at the Bernabéu, the clock on 96, and he scored that too, sending Madrid to the final. “We’re going to do something magic,” he said in Manchester, and now they had.
Again. Against Paris Saint-Germain Madrid were 2-0 down on aggregate when he scored a hat-trick to take them through. He scored three more at Stamford Bridge, and scored again at the Bernabéu. Then came City. He had scored in every knockout game, having missed the loss in Paris. “Yes, we’re dependent on him; I have no problem saying that,” Carlo Ancelotti said. “I’m happy to be dependent on a player like Karim.” Nor was it just the goals, the coach saying that describing him as a striker “stopped short”.
Zidane, who Benzema saw as a kind of big brother, would agree. “People talk about Karim as a pure No 9, a 9 and a half, a 10; for me, he’s a bit of everything,” he said. “I would define him as a total footballer.”
Benzema had always felt so too. In fact, he didn’t always see himself as a striker at all; he played, and for others. He played, he liked to say, for those who understand the game. Above all, of course, he played for Ronaldo and while he likes to claim his game hasn’t changed, he admits that it’s different when you have someone alongside you who gets 50 a season. In Ronaldo’s absence, he has taken on that responsibility. It didn’t happen immediately – the first year post Ronaldo was hard – but he has embraced it too, enjoyed it.
Stepping into the spotlight, he has been recognised too, the conversation shifting, his legacy ever larger, ever more lasting. The Ballon d’Or in his luggage, where everyone knew it would end up, takes him to another level, driven there by numbers even though they are not everything. Benzema has overtaken Alfredo Di Stéfano and Raúl, meaning the only man to have scored more than him at Madrid is the man he provided.
Every season he has got better: six times he has scored more than 20 league goals in his 13 seasons at Madrid; four of those are the past four, all having passed 30 years of age. Last season was better than any other and, put simply, better than any other player too. It culminated in Paris where he won his fifth European Cup and perhaps the first that was seen as his, ensuring that when he went back on Monday night this award would be too.
