Perhaps one of the most underrated footballers, whose class and control of the game was often ignored even by his own fans. However, he is the Frenchman who has scored the most goals with the Real Madrid shirt, and he can boast of having been a guaranteed partner for legends like Cristiano Ronaldo. If you want to know more about him, we invite you to read this biography and net worth of Karim Benzema (December 19, 1987, Lyon, France).
Karim Benzema biography overview
Karim was born in the Rhône-Alpes region. At 9 years old, a pair of Lyon scouts, a Ligue 1 team, see him play a game of fry and decide to present his father with an offer to enlist in the lower categories of the club. The following year he moved to the city and after 8 seasons he ended up rising to the first team in 2005, with only 17 springs.
Benzema’s first two seasons in Lyon were opaque to gray, with very little participation due to his young age and high competition on the team’s roster. It was not until 2007 when he started playing the starting game more regularly, in a club that was the absolute dominator of the domestic championship, which that year he won for the third consecutive time.
“El Gato” took his opportunity, and for the 2008-2009 season, he was the team’s star striker in a Ligue 1 that they would win once again, with him as the tournament’s top scorer and being chosen as the best player of the entire season. Such a performance did not go unnoticed, and soon many clubs in other leagues would be interested in the player.
In the transfer market of the summer of 2009, Florentino Pérez returns to the presidency of Real Madrid with the ambition of building a winning team. Karim, 22 years old, signs for the team in the Spanish capital, arriving with the title striker sign in the absence of quality troops in that area. In this way, he would be one of the three “galacticos” who joined the team that season together with Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Karim Benzema net worth
When Karim is presented in the Lyon dressing room in 2004, his teammates laughed and he said to them: “Don’t laugh! I came to take your seat. ” His net worth is about 40 million US dollars and most of the earning comes from football.
Karim Benzema’s first years at Real Madrid
Karim’s first two years at Real Madrid were gray, largely due to the fact that the maximum rival, FC Barcelona, largely dominated the Spanish First Division tournament, which in 2011 would win for the third consecutive time. In addition, among the fans there were many critics who claimed that the Frenchman was not the right striker for a team like Real Madrid.
This would change in the 2011-2012 season, the second of the Portuguese coach José Mourinho, who gave Karim more gallons and made him the starting striker of the team that won La Liga with 100 points and more than 120 goals in the same edition, a historical record for the competition.
However, the following season the team would have a huge slump in which Benzema was the protagonist, ending the year with the worst numbers since his arrival at Real Madrid. That year they would lose La Liga and would be more than 15 points behind FC Barcelona, which regained the throne in Spain.
4 Champions in 5 years: The consecration of “El Gato”!
In the 2013-2014 season, Italian Carlo Ancelotti arrived to occupy the position of coach that Mourinho left. With him, Benzema recovers the good level of always, especially in the UEFA Champions League , where he performed performances of great merit that allowed the team to be champion of that edition.
However, in La Liga Barcelona continued to dominate, which caused a lot of discomfort among the meringues fans, who whenever they could, pointed to Benzema as one of the people responsible for the team’s poor performance. In 2015, the Catalans would win all the titles and leave Madrid blank, which caused many to request his transfer.
Benzema continued at the club, and the following seasons would finish forging his legend in the Champions League, showing an excellent level in a competition that Real Madrid would win three consecutive times (2016, 2017 and 2018)This is the first time that a team has been able to revalidate the title since it ceased to be called the European Cup in 1992.
Benzema only scored in 2018 final but scored goals in the semifinals that allowed the team to get through to the final match. Performances against Bayern Munich or Atlético de Madrid allowed him to earn the respect of the fans, becoming one of the most loved players by it.
