Karim Benzema enters the pantheon of French football.

Sacred Ballon d'Or after a dream season, the Real Madrid striker is only the fifth Frenchman to win the most prestigious individual award in football.

A trophy he received on Monday, October 17, with emotion from the hands of his idol, ex-coach and last French winner to date, Zinedine Zidane. 

Discover the five French people who put their name on the Ballon d'Or list.

They are five French people to have lifted the Ballon d'Or 👏🇫🇷



🏆 Raymond Kopa (1958)


🏆 Michel Platini (1983/84/85)


🏆 Jean-Pierre Papin (1991)


🏆 Zinédine Zidane (1998)


🏆 Karim Benzema (2022 ) pic.twitter.com/6UBxuaxM47

— PFC (@PassionFootClub) October 17, 2022

Raymond Kopa, the first

The first star of French football, the 1958 Ballon d'Or winner shone in a foreign club long before Zinedine Zidane or Michel Platini.

It is under the colors of Real Madrid that Kopa's dribbling works wonders and that he wins the European Cup of Champion Clubs, the ancestor of the Champions League, three times (1957, 1958 and 1959) .

Best player in the 1958 World Cup, Kopa led the Blues with Just Fontaine to third place, after losing to Pelé's Brazil in the semi-finals (5-2).

Since 2018, the trophy bearing the name of the former winger, who died in 2017, has rewarded the best hope in world football under the age of 21.

Michel Platini, the only multiple French winner

First player to win three successive Ballons d'Or (1983, 1984 and 1985), well before Lionel Messi, Michel Platini symbolized on the lawn the rebirth of the France team after years of scarcity.

He who in an interview with AFP in 2020 called himself a "winner" was the great architect of the French victory at Euro-1984, France's first international title in a collective sport.

He scored nine goals in five matches, the record at a Euro.

At the same time, Platini finished top scorer in the Italian Championship three times with Juventus Turin, where, before experiencing a more tumultuous second career in sports, he filled his shelf with numerous national and European titles.

Jean-Pierre Papin, the only winner rewarded while playing in France

We do not forget that Jean-Pierre Papin is the only player to have won a Ballon d'Or under the colors of a French club.

#BallonDor #TeamOM pic.twitter.com/p3l7LlNSNM

– Info OM (@InfosOM_) October 17, 2022

Crowned in 1991, the first winner to have won no international title – he only won the Champions League in 1994 with AC Milan – the center forward of Olympique de Marseille made an impression thanks to his prolific and spectacular goalscoring activity.

The only Frenchman rewarded by playing in a club in France, "JPP" panics the counters with his "papinades", his acrobatic volleys.

He was the top scorer in the French championship from 1988 to 1992, and remains today the 9th top scorer in the history of Les Bleus with 30 goals.

Zinedine Zidane, the magician

The year 1998 was that of a change of dimension for Zidane, definitively entering the hearts of French supporters with the title of Les Bleus at the World Cup.

No matter his red card against Saudi Arabia in the pool, or his exclusion years later for a whim against the Italian Marco Materazzi in the final of the 2006 World Cup.

Zidane, who would become one of Real Madrid's "Galacticos" before finding success there as a coach, is remembered as the author of two of the three goals during the French coronation against Brazil on July 12, 1998 and crushes the competition when voting for the Ballon d'Or that year.

Karim Benzema, the oldest

By winning the Ballon d'Or 2022 on Monday, of which he was the big favorite, Karim Benzema, who will turn 35 on December 19, has become his second oldest winner of all time, behind Englishman Stanley Matthews (in 1956, at age 41).

The former Olympique Lyonnais player had been regularly named since 2008, racking up titles and goals with Real Madrid.

But he came up against the almost hegemonic competition of the duo Cristiano Ronaldo-Lionel Messi, winners of all editions since 2008 with the exception of 2018 (Luka Modric), and the troubled image which has sometimes been his.

More peaceful, back with the Blues and author of a full season at Real, "KB9" appears today at the top of his game, as demonstrated by this late recognition.

With AFP

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