Real baller and Ballon d'Or winner Benzema remains a perfect striker and better than ever at 34

Johnny Nic isn't a fan of Karim Benzema's off-field character but on top of that, the Real Madrid and France centre-forward is as deadly as forwards come. He deserves this Ballon d'Or.

Who is it then? Karim Mostafa Benzema is the 6-foot-1, 34-year-old French striker from Real Madrid who won the Ballon d'Or this week. He scored 44 goals in 46 games for Real Madrid in the 2021/22 season, winning his fourth La Liga title and fifth Champions League trophy.

Born in Lyon, he was a prolific goalscorer among youngsters. His career began at Lyon B before moving to the first team in 2004 under the management of Paul Le Guen. He was in and out of the team for the first three years but hit his stride in 2007/08, playing 52 games and scoring 31 times. He was the league's top scorer, won their fourth consecutive league title and helped Lyon to a league and cup double.

The 2007/08 season was when he caught the attention of all Europeans. He was named Ligue Un player of the year and shortlisted for the Ballon d'Or for the first time.

The following campaign was his last at Lyon, scoring 23 out of 47 goals. In 2009, he transferred to Real Madrid who showed up and paid 35 million euros into Lyon's bank account. It was a lot of money at the time. He was only 21 at the time.

However, it was a difficult start for him at his new club. He scored just nine in 33 appearances in the first season and was in and out of the squad, his form inconsistent. It didn't help that CR7 also arrived and hit the ground running with 33 goals in 35 games. He went on to score 450 times in 438 goals, a number that would make any other striker look bad.

The following year José Mourinho arrived, didn't like him very much and publicly criticized him, thinking he was slow and overweight and didn't work hard enough. Even so, he still scored 26 goals in 48 appearances and only twice in the following 12 seasons failed to register at least 20 strikes.

In 2011, he underwent a kind of physical transformation, losing weight and building muscle. It made him a much more powerful player and he helped the club win La Liga, scoring 32 times. However, until 2018 when Ronaldo left, he was still in his shadow, as the Portuguese racked up increasingly absurd goalscoring records.

But Benzema got his way, making 40 or 50 appearances each season, doing more and more of Ronaldo's job and making room for him to score. This was particularly the case in 2017/18 when he scored just 12 goals in 47 games, but the following year, with Ronaldo's departure, he scored 30. Ronaldo's shackles were finally lifted. p>

He has now scored 431 goals in 860 games and this year, despite being 34 years old, he seems to have reached the best form of his career.

He made his international debut in 2007 but in 2015 he was left out by Didier Deschamps and thus began a five-year absence from the France squad with a healthy dose of mutual disgust on either side. However, in 2021 he returned to score nine times in 13 games, helping France win the Nations League.

Along the way there was the not insignificant issue of his arrest for having sex with a 16-year-old prostitute who went to court but was kicked out for lack of evidence that he and his co-defendants knew that she was 16 And as if that weren't enough, in November 2021 he was found guilty of blackmailing Mathieu Valbuena with a sex tape, for which he received a one-year suspended sentence and 75,000 € fine. So I think we can say he's no angel, and that's to drastically underestimate him.

Why this love? He can play anywhere up front, away or as a No.10 and that flexibility has kept him in many different formations. Throughout those years playing in the same team as CR7, he worked so hard, directing the channels and occupying the defenders to make room for his teammate to score and often monopolize all the glory.

The fact that in all but two of those seasons he scored over 20 goals is testament to his ability. If he had been one of the main strikers, he would certainly have been one of the best scorers of all time.

Even at 34, he's still hungry. The third goal of his Champions League quarter-final hat-trick against Chelsea, although a huge stunt from Edouard Mendy, was created by Benzema's urgency to shut down the ball and to capitalize on the error. A less motivated player would have been right back on his heels. He works super hard. It was the same in the previous round against PSG, shutting down the keeper, forcing him into an error for his first goal which he scored by hitting him with the first kick as he ran into them - great skill in self.