Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy has been likened to Liverpool stopper Loris Karius for the way he cost his team a goal in the Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.
Manager Thomas Tuchel was left cursing a "bad mistake" early in the second half as Mendy's short pass left Antonio Rudiger in trouble and Karim Benzema stole in to put the Spanish side 3-1 ahead at Stamford Bridge. The goal completed a hat-trick for Benzema, and saw him set a record for a French player in the Champions League.
It is far from the first time the striker has taken advantage of a goalkeeping misstep, though. Karius' error in the 2018 final might have been the most high-profile, and comparisons in the continental media are testament to this, but Benzema has a knack for taking advantage when the stakes are high.
As the fallout from the game continued, AS made reference to Karius' struggles. However, the publication made reference to a couple of other examples.
"To all this we must add the tremendous error of Edouard Mendy," the AS assessment read (via Sport Witness ). "After Karius, Ulreich and Donnarumma, the enthusiastic pressure from Benzema already has another victim on his resume."
The Karius incident was a little different, with Benzema turning an attempted clearance from the German into the back of the Liverpool net. However, with a fourth "victim" added to the list, the impact of the Frenchman's pressing can't be dismissed as a series of unrelated coincidences.
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The hat-trick was Benzema's second in successive Champions League games, taking him up to 11 in this season's competition. However, the last treble - in the come-from-behind victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16, began when he took advantage of a Gianluigi Donnarumma error.
The Italy goalkeeper came in for criticism after the game in Madrid, though PSG boss Mauricio Pochettino argued the goal should have been disallowed. "I wonder what the VAR is doing, for me there is a foul on Donnarumma," he told Canal+ via Goal. "It's a shame, because when you see the action again, it's a foul."
The other incident referenced by AS came in the 2017-18 semi-final between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. With Benzema bearing down on him, Ulreich absentmindedly moved to pick up a backpass before opting to kick and getting it all wrong. At the time, Madrid led 3-2 on aggregate, and the error would end Bayern's hopes of reaching the final.
Speaking to SportBild after the game (via Bundesliga.com ), Ulreich gave Benzema credit for his part in the goal. "As the back pass came towards me, it looked for a second like Benzema was about to get a foot on it, so I adjusted to a one-on-one situation," he said.
"But then the ball came through and I only thought 'uh oh, now I can’t pick it up.' I had two thoughts - I just didn’t choose correctly."
Just as Ulreich's error ended up helping eliminate Bayern, Mendy's could well prove decisive for Chelsea. "If we play like this [again], we will lose in Southampton and then we don’t need to think about Bernabeu because we will get hammered in Bernabeu," Tuchel told BT Sport after the first leg loss.
"At this level you cannot play like this, individually and a team, from all of us it was not enough. We were not doing what we are used to do, it was far from our standards."
