Jacob Wright
There’s always been something ever-so-slightly guarded about Karim Benzema. Chances are it simply stems from self-preservation. After all, the fame of an elite footballer can also come replete with some dark twists and turns if your decision making isn’t on-point, and Benzema has certainly found himself on the rough end of that attention over the course of the last decade or so. But if the trials of life are what truly make us, then the man from the uncompromising Lyon suburb of Bron has always found a way to double-down and perform… to thrive, even.
There’s a rather telling story about Benzema from 2004, as he was breaking into the first team at Lyon – a team dominating French football at the time and in the middle of seven straight Ligue 1-winning seasons. After being ribbed by senior players during a first team initiation ceremony, the young striker replied quite simply by saying that he was there to “take their place.”
Now, it’s likely that this story has been varnished over the years and given a more brooding edge – it’s almost certain Benzema said it tongue-in-cheek. But to have the confidence to front up to a squad packed with seasoned international talent at the age of just 17? Well, that speaks of character. But character also needs the reinforcement of action to ring true.
For Benzema, this was simply the way of things. “If I waited for the praise, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he tells GQ Middle East. “The key to success is constant hard work, there is no secret. For many people, having the number nine on their back means scoring 50 goals a season but, for me, it means I’m one of 11 players and I have to do everything I can to help the team score and win, not just with goals, but also with assists, moves and gestures.”
What’s certain is that Benzema’s work ethic is unquestioned. He’s had to fight for every inch of success he’s achieved. From rapid early progression at Lyon, to moving to Madrid and refusing to be sidelined by the glittering talent on array at the Bernabéu. There is many a promising footballer who has gone in search of the dream at Madrid and been found wanting, the pressure to succeed like a rusting anvil on their chest. Benzema fought his way through early criticism to shine.
To win titles, to score goals, to make goals… whatever the team needed for 14 years. In that penultimate season, particularly, he was the talisman, the one who helped push them to LaLiga and Champions League success. He also became, at 34, the second oldest player to ever win the Ballon’ d’Or (and the only other player, along with Luka Modric, to break the Messi-Ronaldo 16-year stranglehold of the trophy).
And so there were certainly some raised eyebrows when Benzema, with the buzz of football’s most glittering individual prize sitting in his back pocket, decided to make the move to Saudi Arabia, to lead the line for the recently crowned league champions Al-Ittihad, and become a standard bearer for the upwardly mobile Saudi Pro League (SPL) in the process. But perhaps there’s a kind of poetry to it all, an element of fate and overarching protection for one football’s finest strikers. “As a Muslim, when you are in Mecca you feel at peace,” he said during one official SPL interview. “It is an exceptional place. I am at peace here.”
As an observer, it’s hard to wish for more than peace for Karim Benzema – a player who has experienced more than his fair share of career tumult. He wants to give back, too, with a football academy planned to help players make the grade. At the moment, however, he just aims to represent Saudi well, even if that aforementioned tranquillity has recently felt on loose footing. While rumours over his future in Jeddah persist, you get the impression that the 36-year-old striker still has some unfinished business in the region.
“It [being in Saudi] is a new challenge [and one] that I like – a long-term project and in a Muslim country,” he says. “I’m not only a football player here in Saudi Arabia, I’m also an ambassador. I’m here to bring great European players in, in the near future, even if there are already great ones in the Saudi league. Our challenge is to raise it to the same level of the European Leagues.
“Time will tell [what happens next] but it will be myself who chooses when my career will end or not… Ultimately, I would like to be remembered as someone who started from the bottom and worked their way up to the top alone, and despite all the obstacles I have faced. That is something that makes me truly proud.”
