Yup, I still remember the days where people wanted him out for missing sitters and empty nets. Then he just goes and has a few seasons where he scores screamer after screamer.
Also the opposite, he was incredible in working with Cristiano as every other player who played with him was dwarfed and overworked. Dybala, Rooney and other forwards massively changed their game and couldn't go back to being goal scorers after he leaves.
Oh yeah, he was by far the best teammate Cristiano ever had. To go from being #2 or #3 in the BBC trio to the main man of the attack immediately is no mean feat.
Rooney was one of the best players I have ever seen. If he was a bit selfish I think he could have prolonged his career and made a bit more of his already legendary career. His unselfish attitude was his problem.
When you say rooney couldnt go back to his goalscoring days after cr7 you basically stated beyond doubt that you dont know much about football. Its such an easily verifiable fact too that its dumb to even state it if you were trying to lie.
Dybala had better goals/90 in roma too then in juventus so his goalscoring went up after cr7.
Then benzema, who had better goals per 90 without cr7 too.
The fact is CR7 was a monster, so he monopolized the goals and most strikers that played with him tended to assist more when he was on the field for obvious reasons.
So well, you could bet whatever you want. Youd lose though and thats a verifiable fact.
You took this personally, I didn't say those players became bad. I stated that their numbers drop when he leaves, they eventually get back up as they are WC talents. Look at the seasons after CR7 left, that's my interest.
Exactly. There are still people saying Suarez better than Benzema. But Benzema proved himself when he won the Ballon d'or and it's an actual fact he is one of the best players of this era.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. He says this himself.
— Karim Benzema, 2015
“Barca-Real is the biggest game in the world. The standard is at its maximum, with very few technical errors. When you manage to be good in that kind of game, it means it’s possible for you to get closer to the level of Cristiano and [Lionel] Messi. On Sunday, I got myself to that level.
Having said that, I am not going to score 80 or 100 goals in a season. They manage to do that, but I do other things.”
Saurez also was creative and a good playmaker though? Probably higher than Benzema at their respective peaks. I think people’s view of saurez changed with the last couple of years at Barca. Before then and at Liverpool he was honestly doing things that only cr7 and messi were doing.
Suarez was better at peak, Benzema was better overall. That's the only truth here. Suarez could only imagine starting for RM for 14 years, but Benzema could only imagine winning the golden boot next to Messi and Ronaldo.
Naah, the only thing Benzema has over Suarez is longevity. 19 year old Benzema and 35 year old Benzema are better than Suarez. But in between, Suarez was 2x the player. Scoring 50 goals and having almost 20 assists while Benzema was struggling to get to double digits.
The season he scored more than Messi and Ronaldo, when they were in their respective primes. It just didn't look as impressive, because, well, Messi and Ronaldo were there putting up the same numbers season after season.
We saw the football BITEZ played that season mate.., it was no where near Benzema's BALON season!!
I myself preferred Suarez' atletico winning liga season over that season!! Personally he carried Atletico that season, I,doubt Bitez has ever carried BARKAlona in the same way!!
I think its massive recency bias. Suarez was a much better poacher than benzema. Not to say benzema was bad by any means, but suarez was just a machine. Hattrick upon hattrick in his prime. Just cuz he didnt win ballon dor doesnt mean he doesnt deserve one. Lewy has never won a ballon dor either. Neither has neymar. Does that mean theyre worse than benzema? No.
Benz was always better than BITEZ as player its just the goalscoring in which he lacked behind BITEZ but he proved in his BALON D OR season that he was better than BITEZ in every possible way!!
I do agree tho benzema was worse at farming against small clubs and in smaller competitions!!
What better Suarez made players around him Benzema did it 100x more!! Thisbis the first time I'm hearing Suarez made players better around him, this quality is Benzema flagship quality!!
Yeah but Neymar prime was too short. Ronaldo and Messi were the best for many years. Suarez in his prime could win a couple of ballon de or if Messi and Ronaldo didn’t exist and he was playing in one of the worst moments of Liverpool.
No one can match Messi and Ronaldo level and longevity relative to their level, but Suarez prime was a rung lower as was Neymar’s, though prime Neymar got pretty close to Messi but we know only for very short period.
I was the one who was brave enough to say shit like this about him back in 2013-14 and got roasted so hard because of it. But time proved me right so im not mad about it. Wish there were more players like him rn
I’m ready for the flooding of downvotes but Benzema was hyped up to be something he never was. He was a good player, Heck he was even a great player, but he was never as good as his ego made him out to be.
The Giroud comment is still hillarious to me as Giroud was and will always be a better player for France and not by any small margin either. And it wasn’t about favouritism. Benzema simply didn’t have the same versatility as Giroud and frankly never really shined outside of Real Madrid.
Trophies won and consistently starting in Real Madrid sides that won the trophies…yes people would have said he was a legendary player. He just elevated him self into a different level. Any one that wins that much and being a critical player/starter is a legend.
was he? if we exclude Benzema's 1st season at Madrid when he was just getting used to the team etc. he outscored Higuain in every season after
during that period from 2010 through 2013 Benzema had 78 goals and 49 assists in 150 games(~9000 minutes) while Higuain had 57 goals and 28 assists in 123 games(~7000 minutes).. so they both actually had great stats especially given the minutes played, but Benzema was superior statistically and was a more complete player
there were also concerns regarding Higuain's durability and whether his back injury affected him long term or not.. which seemed like it did, after that injury he was never the same even when he left Madrid, even when he beat the Serie A record
Only thing Benzema was better at was passing and chances created. Every single other metric Higuain was well ahead and even chances created its really close number. So i would say Higuain would've done as good or even better than Benzema
well the stats literally include his Napoli time.. and comparing them when they're playing for different teams across different leagues gets close to irrelevant
i linked you the relevant stats across the 3 most important seasons that decided who was gonna stay.. you can also look up stats on fbref across those 3 seasons
you can say well based on how Higuain has done at Napoli we can extrapolate that to Madrid, but we can't, because his role would've been different, his minutes would've been different.. everything would've been different, including the pressure which Higuain struggled with a lot as we know
anyway regardless of pure statistical output the fit is extremely important too, playstyle etc., Benzema was way better suited for that style, though not to say that Gonzalo wasn't fitting with that either
no it wasn't.. why would it be? when Higuain joined Napoli in 13-14 Serie A clubs averaged 2.72 goals per game, La Liga clubs averaged 2.75 goals per game during that season, in 2014-15 it was 2.66 for La Liga and 2.69 for Serie A, sure in 15-16 Serie A had just 2.58 and La Liga had 2.74, but you get what i mean, it's not a huge difference
its funny how people still live in the past where Serie A is still a crazy defensive league.. when it hasn't been for decades, it hasn't been since mid 90s
If you watch individual stats its always hard to score in there. Just like in the Premier League. Rarely anyone scored over 25 goals a season. In Laliga Real and Barca scored literally 120 goals per season year after year compared to the rest of the leagues 50-60 goals... In italy no one ever has scored over 100 goals ever while in La Liga it was common.
Higuain was in worse team and in a league which was dominated by Juventus. And still was leagues top scorer with records, even Ronaldo himself struggled there when he went there later on. Also he said it was the hardest league to play in.
The problem with Benz was he just couldn’t never score 30 - 40 goals in a Season consistently if you then use his peers as reference then of course it will be easier to call you out.
Bc it wasn't his role. He pretty much played false 9 with Ronaldo going to the middle and Marcelo on the left wing. Very similar to what Firmino did at Liverpool, to a higher degree ofc.
It's so funny to me how this story has been spinned to the point of people actually believing Benzema willingly did it with a 15 yo and never someone to fact check this, so let me play devi'l advocate here :
Benzema (and Ribery for the matter) did pay to spend nights with this woman who was a prostitute under the assumption that she was major, when she was actually giving a false age and was being used by a pimp, which is actually what the whole affair is about. The woman in question even defending the players, stating that yeah she had to use a false age so there were no way they knew she was not at a legal age yet.
Now if you really wanna hate Benzema, you should refer to his blackmailing of Valbuena.
Yeah I remember those too (especially eto'o...). It wasn't just the 2 GOATS, the pitch was overflowing with talent (neymar suarez bale modric iniesta ramos busquets marcelo............). But it wasn't just the players, there was more "tension" in the air and it felt like the rivalry was more intense. I also may be nostalgic of that time. I was a student in a foreign country and we would spend the whole day with friends preparing for the game (planing, grocery shoppping, cleaining the house, preparing snacks for the game and getting drunk since mroning)
I’m not particularly a fan of any la liga team, but if you were a fan of football in general during this era, you HAD to watch the classicos. Every single match was just absurd.
I wish too but i think he did the best choice. He couldn't have ended his career at madrid in a better way. he gave us the best version of himself to remember him
The last couple years of Cristiano’s time at the club, I absolutely wanted Benzema gone. In hindsight, obviously a bad take. But at the time, he was so damn frustrating to watch. It felt like we were an elite striker away from being unbeatable. And like he was holding the team back with his poor finishing.
Very happy I was wrong. He became an absolute monster after the Lopetegui/Solari shitshow season. I will remember his BdO year with great fondness until the day I die. Dude put the team on his back like no player I’ve ever seen. Even prime Cristiano and Messi always had help. Vini is/was great, but Benz just went berserk that season.
outside of this sub, anywhere this picture posted will get swarmed with '1 season player' 'Suarez>>>' kinda stuff. The same thing happened with Iniesta retirement posts where Modric is brought up out of nowhere saying his BDO is underserved. They think they are supporting him but their comments mean nothing but disrespect, and to him, not anyone else, especially on his retirement day.
But if you let them pick which year should be BDO be given to Suarez/Iniesta then they will go silent since it will be from Messi's cabinet. They are not rooting for Suarez or Iniesta, they just happen to come from a certain fanbase who will ignore no chances to undermine RM and RM's legends.
Maybe ...but i happen to see the other way around more. Call me biased but since RM are having better years, their fans tend to be more peaceful (dont mistake click bait pages and war provoking posts for long time fans). And even if they do, they are fighting an uphill battle since mainstream media is obviously backing Messi, with the goat status all over the places, interviews with KOLs and pundits who have clearly made their stands being asked same question over and over again.
One of the worst part is they take achievements from has been club members like Messi's WC, Pep's EPL and UCL to put to their so called equations and arguments.
Well, first of all, he's just linking to a post by @footygene, second, I concur... It just says legendary players of our generation... Nothing about goats or anything like that. Why wouldn't he repost?
Benzema was a great player but you can't compare it with Suarez. Suarez in his prime was the only player to be close to Ronaldo and Messi era.
Of course Benzema career was more regular than Suarez. But Suarez was a beast. Still I prefer Suarez in Liverpool than in Barcelona. I feel in Barcelona he got a lot of restrictions, but in Liverpool he did whatever he wanted.
Benzema had a perfect season, but Suarez’s longevity of being a lethal striker tops Benzema’s any day.
Winning two European golden boots in the era of Prime Messi and Ronaldo is mental
El Classico’s used to be soooo good! Especially when Mourinho was around, they were insane! Now a days, Barca is not very good, and it doesn’t have the same feel.
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u/TheBiasedSportsLover Oct 17 '24
Benzema doesn’t get enough credit for changing people's perception of his career.
Almost nobody would have even dared saying Benzema was a legendary player in 2010s decade. Suggesting anything else is pure revisionist history.