It was José Mourinho who said that football is a game that “starts with the head, continues with the heart and ends with the feet. “Wednesday evening, under the downpours of London, Karim Benzema came to make his little personal correction, closing the loop from head to head. If Nueve’s progress in this area is nothing new, these two magnificent helmet shots against Chelsea have definitely made him enter the category of masters of the discipline.
And again, we are talking about the blow of the helmet but, with regard to the second, a marvel among marvels, it would be more judicious to speak of a caress. This is also the one that its author preferred. “The three goals are important but it may be the second [le plus beau], because it is in finesse”, he said at the final whistle. From its positioning between the defenders to the small step back that makes the difference, passing by this mini-movement of the neck to cushion the ball more than hitting it, everything in this gesture is only luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
Benzema, where the controlled reflex
Note that the first one isn’t naughty either, but in another style. To describe him, since we will not do better than him, we leave the pen of Vincent Duluc, Thursday in The Team, do the job: “When Vinicius crosses back, a little hard, he only has his head to oppose, like a reflex, but the reflex says everything his body has been prepared to do without thinking. »
Reflex, the word could not be better chosen. But a reflex all in control to come and fold this balloon into the skylight of Mendy and give headaches to the most experienced trajectory physicists. Honestly, how many players are able to take that ball in right now? Lewandowski, maybe, that’s all. And, above all, how many in his place would have closed their eyes and bet on the luck of the misunderstanding?
But Benzema does not close his eyes, he repeats his ranges as with his feet. Through hard work, under the patronage of CR7, the king of the cabeza, the international tricolor has managed to master all possible techniques. This is what he told our colleagues from The Team : “For precision, it’s like in my game, I’m not a nag. So I jump, and then I know whether to sting, whether to put in bell. To make a face is not to close your eyes and put a blow. Yet there are many who score goals like that! “.
Class from head to toe
It is this way of apprehending the gesture with intelligence that pleased Tony Cascarino, another master in the field, in a previous paper that we wrote on the subject. “Heading requires much more technique than it seems, told us the former Nancy. It is an art. The art of positioning yourself, the art of jumping in the right tempo. Not everyone is capable of it. Benzema’s progression in the heading game for ten years is just exceptional. »
After a double of the skull against Athletic Bilbao in 2019, Zidane himself was left speechless. “He has scored 10 headed goals this season! I didn’t see it as good from the head. But really ! He is always in the right place, he jumps at the right time, he has this instinct to always put himself where he needs to be. I’m happy for him, it pays, his work is rewarded. »
Since this famous trigger season, in 2018-2019, KB9 has planted 27 goals (out of 121, or 22%) from the head with Real. But the best thing about all of this is that these are rarely snag goals. “He put his head where others would not have set foot”, said the late Thierry Roland in his time. Here again, the former Lyonnais allows himself to correct the expression in his own way: He does with his head what others do not do with their feet. Hats off to the artist.