Chelsea 1-3 Real Madrid (Benzema, ’21, ’24, ’26, Havertz ’40)
STAMFORD BRIDGE – The first header was sublime. The angle, the distance from goal, the power, the precision into the corner of the goal Edouard Mendy could not reach. Vinicius Junior’s cross was pacey, it needed taming.
The second was, arguably, better. Different – perhaps too different to compare like that. Luka Modric’s delivery was from deeper, slower, dropping from height. It required coaxing. And that’s not easy with a forehead. Karim Benzema leapt — and hung — and popped the ball carefully over Mendy’s lengthening dive.
Two goals in three minutes. Real Madrid away from home. Only 24 minutes on the clock and Chelsea already left with a huge task to overturn a deficit during the remainder of the two legs to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Benzema’s third goal was a gift the previous two deserved. Chelsea had pulled a vital goal back in the tie via Kai Havertz’s header, but not 60 seconds had passed in the second half when Benzema completed the hat trick.
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Mendy — perhaps dazed and confused from the shock and absurdity of facing two such unstoppable headers in one match — was way out of goal and on the ball when he passed awkwardly to Antonio Rudiger. Benzema pounced, with an anticipation and acceleration belying his years, to tackle Rudiger and roll the ball into Chelsea’s empty net from 30-odd yards.
He is 34 years old, somehow improving with age. He should be winding down, not setting personal records. These were his ninth, 10th and 11th goals in the Champions League this season — his most of any campaign since his debut in European football’s marquee club competition for Lyon, back in 2005, before the rugged beard replaced a fresh face of 17, scoring his first professional goal in a win against Rosenborg. The first of a quite prolific career for one of the finest strikers of a generation.
When he arrived in Madrid in 2009 nine days after world-record signing Cristiano Ronaldo for a third of the fee it felt like an afterthought. Hundreds more millions spent on forwards, yet all have revolved around Benzema like planets orbiting a sun. Even now.
He still looks lean and fit. He’s still sharp and nifty. His quick feet and fast thought when the score was goalless almost lead to a Real Madrid opener. The clever back-heel on the side-line initiated a move that Vinicius crashed onto Chelsea’s crossbar.
And Benzema has formed a productive partnership with Vinicius Junior, a forward 13 years his junior, seems to thrive off the speed of his younger team-mate, to almost utilise his team-mate’s fresher legs for his own gain.
The theory goes that the older a player gets, the harder it should be to surpass their age in goals. This season, Benzema already has 42 in 42 games for club and country — 13 in his last seven.
He has roomfuls of trophies, and castles full of goals. And much of this achieved while playing during some pretty stressful times of his own making. Nine years playing under the cloud of serious criminal offences that would break other players.
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In 2010 he was being investigated by French police for having sex with an underage prostitute; the trial began in 2014, with the charge dropped by a judge determining there was a lack of evidence that Benzema knew the prostitute was underage. He scored 89 goals in that period, won the La Liga title, a Champions League, two Copa del Reys.
That could be enough to contend with for one person, but more was to come, his story becoming ever more peculiar. Arrested in November 2015 for his part in a plot to blackmail France team-mate Matheiu Valbuena, it would be six years before he was found guilty, handed a one-year suspended sentence and fined €75,000.
Benzema did not turn up to the trial. He still managed to score 12 goals in 13 games while it was taking place, still scored against FC Sheriff in the Champions League on the day he discovered he had avoided jail. He scored 163 goals in that six-year period, won two La Ligas, three Champions Leagues.
Six months free from controversy, he’s playing better than ever.
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