EFE
Since Zinedine Zidane embraced the Ballon d’Or in 1998, no other Frenchman had had the honor of doing so. Karim Benzema is the main favorite to take over from his mentor at Real Madrid at the ceremony that will take place in Paris this Monday.
In the first year in three decades in which the Argentine Lionel Messi is not among the candidates, Benzema is willing to become the second player to win the award since the shared hegemony between the “Flea” and the Portuguese Cristiano began in 2008 Ronaldo. Only his Croatian teammate Luka Modric, winner in 2018, has been able to break it so far.
The 34-year-old white attacker had an extraordinary season at his club, architect of the Spanish league and the Champions League, without a doubt the most outstanding man of the most successful club, enough credentials so that no one appears in a position to overshadow him .
His numbers make 2022 one of those editions lacking in suspense and that the ceremony has some formalities to make something that everyone already takes for granted come true: 42 goals in 44 games, top scorer in the Champions League with 15 goals, underpin a candidacy without cracks.
PENDING ACCOUNTS
The Frenchman will thus settle an account with a prize that has not treated him well. Until last year, his best position was the 16th he had in 2014, and in 2021, when some even included him among the favorites, he was one step away from the podium.
His great year has erased the stain of his conviction for complicity in blackmailing his teammate Mathieu Valbuena with a sexual video, but as the director of France Football, organizer of the award, Pascal Ferré, said in an interview with EFE, “The Ballon d’Or is not the Nobel Peace Prize”.
The prize will also be a message for young people: for the second consecutive year, a 34-year-old player will win.
In the absence of suspense about the winner, uncertainty remains about his companions on the podium, two positions for which four names are being considered.
The Polish Robert Lewandowski, author of 52 goals, can once again be one step away from the prize, as happened to him last season behind Messi. Ferré acknowledged that he feels as a personal wound that in 2020, when he was the great favorite, the prize was not awarded due to the pandemic.
Frenchman Kylian Mbappé will also have to wait. Last year, at the age of 22, he entered the “top 10” and now he will be around the podium thanks to his 40 goals and 27 assists with Paris Saint-Germain.
The 15 goals and 12 assists of the Belgian Kevin de Bruyne with Manchester City, with whom he reached the semifinal of the Champions League and won the Premier League, can bring him closer to the final trident, to which the Senegalese from Liverpool Sadio Mané also aspires, author of 22 goals and who, in addition to the European final, can boast of having won the Africa Cup of Nations.
