Preview: It's not often there's a hiatus in terms of my unofficial football focus series. It's the first time. One may have noticed for last week, there are two album reviews. Not that I had ran out of ideas for the series. For this week's topic, I had been planning for a while now. In terms of gathering whatever I know. At the end of a day, if you are too good for your club, the major clubs will take notice of your talents sooner or later and the question of whether staying at your current club starts to be raised. After it had been noted of Lyon and France striker Karim Benzema's talents, major clubs in Europe like Manchester United and Real Madrid had been noted just how good he can be. But that is another issue... In a (sort of) unofficial weekend football focus series, Euro 2008 special (given France is my other national team to root for after Germany for the tournament).
Ahead of Olympique Lyonnais playing Manchester United in the second-leg of the Champions League first knockout round, the club president Jean-Michel Aulas said this - "As we are people of fair play, we have brought a bottle of red wine chosen from the year Benzema was born. It's from 1987, a very fine wine. Instead of buying Benzema, he will get a bottle of fine Bordeaux." Aulas was actually referring to Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
It's no secret Fergie had been an admirer of Lyon striker Karim Benzema. Then maybe again, it could be the media interpreting that he wants to buy the French international over to Old Trafford and all the media 'blitz' between England and France about Benzema started to come about. It has always been Sir Alex's way - if someone scores against United, he will get the person over. I remembered the story of how goalkeeper Edwin van der Saar came over to United from Fulham. He was just so good when there was once the two clubs met in the Premier League that Fergie had to sign him over.
But just who is Karim Benzema? He's French of Algerian descent and is on the verge of becoming well-known in the footballing world. Sounds like someone whom we used to know? Zinedine Zidane. 'Zizou' is also of Algeria descent, but he is from Marseille while Benzema is from Lyon. As according to Wikipedia, he was born on 19 December 1987. Hey...that means I am three months older than him. A person of my age! I don't know, not often I get to know of footballers who are born in the same year as me. But while Zizou had been the person Benzema had been associated with, Zidane is a midfielder while Benzema is a striker.
Ahead of the Champions League first-leg match in France, an article appeared in TODAYonline via AFP, traditionally in French football, it's midfielders (Zidane, the now UEFA President Michel Platini) and not strikers being the country's footballing stars. So up-and-coming French strikers like Karim Benzema is of a rare lot in French football. Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet's successor has arrived.
But for Benzema, all along his idol had been ‘El Fenomeno’, Ronaldo. He did admitted that he had been following Ronaldo's career since the Brazilian moved to Barcelona. His favourite football club is Real Madrid (which are also among the clubs being taken noticed of his talents too). He does like rap music.
Benzema's stock only really risen (he actually first started out playing for his youth team Bron Terraillon in 1996 when Lyon's scouts spotted him) when Florent Malouda joined Chelsea this season. Bernard Lacombe, special advisor to Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas said this - "We were told for years 'You don't have a great striker'. We spent years looking for the one. Now we realise with Benzema we had one in-house all the time."
When was the time I first knew of Karim Benzema? To be honest now, I don't really remember. I think maybe since the time his name started to become more prominent in French and European football. He had even made to Les Bleus as well since March last year in a friendly against Austria. Since then, he had been part of the national side.
But I only really know how good Benzema is when Lyon had been drawn to face Manchester United in the Champions League's first knockout round. It was him who scored Lyon's goal before Carlos Tevez equalising. That was in the first leg. Though United knocked out Lyon in the return leg at Old Trafford, the footballing world now knows who is Karim Benzema and how he will be around for a long time.
Despite now Karim Benzema is becoming famous and appearing more times in the media, family is still important to him. And for Olympique Lyonnais fans, it's definitely good news that he will be at the club for a while. In fact just recently, he had agreed to extend his contract at the club. He had already contracted to the club till 2012.
But if any club wants to get Karim Benzema, club president Jean-Michel Aulas had said that unless Lyon wins the Champions League, Benzema's ain't going anywhere. Now as much I am a Manchester United supporter, I am not complaining. In life, you win and lose some. In football, it's just not possible to get all your favourite footballers in the world to play for the club you support. Unless you have the means somehow somewhat. At the end of the day, I do have my favourite footballers who come from outside the clubs I support.
Few more links before I sign off for now. See you!
France striker Benzema aims high for the future (Source: Reuters)
Benzema wants glory before move (Source: FIFA.com, via AFP)
Brilliant Benzema standing on the verge of greatness (When Man Utd travel to Stade Gerland, they will have to find a way to suppress the most complete young striker in the world today...Source: Guardian Sports Blog, 19 February 2008)
