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So much is the equality with which they are presented to the classic Barcelona and Real Madrid , tied at the head of the classification, that even in the pichichi their two best scorers travel with the same scoring figure at this point in the League. Leo Messi and Karim Benzema have 12 goals, more than anyone else, in an unexpected pulse. That Messi sends in that race is the habitual thing in the last years, but that Benzema maintains the pulse to him is a great novelty.

The Frenchman never started a season with such good records, 16 goals in total , adding those of the Champions League. The nine who always blamed his warmth on goal must now thank his team for such a striking evolution. Since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo , their numbers have skyrocketed, especially in the current course. His last blow, in Mestalla, allows Madrid to step on the Camp Nou colliding with the League, something unusual in recent years, where his steps through the Barça field were threatened by league derailment in case of defeat. This time, even losing, he would have a lot of League ahead.

On the eve of his 32nd birthday (Thursday), the Frenchman goes through extraordinary maturity, adding to his usual football the scoring appetite that for many years he kept hidden in the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo. Zinedine Zidane owes part of his change, both for the confidence he has always shown him, the undisputed holder, and for the mentoring of the older brother that the coach provided him since 2009, when he arrived in that consignment of star signings with which Florentino Pérez landed in his second stage in Madrid. The president now looks with satisfaction at how Benzema has convinced the Bernabéu and also his critics within the club.

"We know they have Messi, but we have our weapons," said Zidane, with his nine , among others, in mind. The coach was the one who recommended a few seasons ago to lose weight and take the profession with the necessary seriousness. Since then, the forward has progressed in football and attitude. You just have to see him in the field, with more mobility, throwing himself to the race when he can and with that sharp tooth inside the area that he previously showed with much more shyness.

The impact of Messi

This Wednesday he will cross Messi , who owes to some extent his arrival in Madrid. The brutal irruption of the Argentine in the Barça de Guardiola forced the white reconstruction, at the beginning of a project that only the nine of Lyon resists at the moment. "It is essential for us to have Benzema controlled," said Ernesto Valverde, who recalled that Madrid "usually plays well at Camp Nou and faces the matches very intensely."

Benzema has played 18 classics, with nine goals and eight assists. Good numbers, although far from the footprint of Messi in the most famous game in the world: 39 played, 26 goals and 14 assists . In Madrid, the figure of 10 generates both respect and admiration, although he has sometimes given the feeling that he needed to claim himself at the Bernabéu. Example: his celebration with the shirt in his hand after scoring the winning goal in 2017, in a League that ended up winning the Zidane team.

In fact, in Madrid he is recognized as the most fearsome enemy the club has ever faced in its 117 years of history, a way to extol the merit of recent successes. "In the future real value will be given to what has been to win four Champions in the time of such a beast," he says proudly in the high command of the white club. That he tried to sign Messi on a couple of occasions, taking his seduced family into one, is in the book of the peculiar relationship of attraction and panic between Madrid and the Barca genius.

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Know more

  • Real Madrid
  • Zinedine Zidane
  • Cristiano Ronaldo
  • Karim Benzema
  • Leo Messi
  • Ernesto Valverde
  • sports
  • FC Barcelona
  • First division

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