"My heroes are my father and my mother": Benzema opens up
The Ballon d'Or winner spoke about the difficulties he faced to get where he is now
Karim Benzema is the player of the moment. Winner of his first Ballon d'Or and the only player apart from Luka Modric to win it since the start of the Cristiano Ronaldo/Lionel Messi dominance in the award, the Real Madrid forward is thriving.
Karim Benzema poses with the 2022 Ballon d'Or
However, things haven't always been this good for the Frenchman, as he revealed in a recent interview when he spoke about the challenges he faced coming up, and when he first arrived at los Blancos.
"I would say that my heroes are my father and my mother. Because they had a really bad time, really bad", explained Benzema, "I didn't have a football player as an example to follow. I'm not going to tell you that I've always managed on my own, but coming from where I come from, I had to excel at something. At 15 or 16 I started to be inspired by Ronaldo, Zidane and others to learn, but I never said: 'I want to be like him'".
After becoming a star for Olympique de Lyon, Benzema had to leave everything he had achieved behind when he moved to Real Madrid: "The beginnings were difficult, very difficult, because I was very young and very lonely in Madrid. I didn't know the language. The first season was very difficult, but it also forced me to reflect and say: 'This is not easy. I have talent, everything I need to succeed at this club, but I have to find out what I need to improve to keep growing. If I continue at the level I'm at now, I won't succeed'".
Benzema looked up to Zidane, but not as a hero he claims
"I do not know [what he'll do when he retires as a player]. Maybe help young people to train, guide them to become good footballers who understand that being the best is actually more than scoring goals", explained Karim Benzema, "I think we don't train young players well in today's football. If you ask them, today they just want to score goals. They all want to score. But not everything is that. I don't want to get too far away from football".
Continue reading: "Any team can beat us, we don't feel invincible": Ancelotti on Real Madrid run
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