Real Madrid fans are crying over Benzema's unexpected goodbye, just three days after all those attending the delivery of the select Marca de Leyenda trophy left convinced that the Frenchman was going to stay. "Not everything that is said on the networks is fulfilled," the striker responded to questions from the presenter of the event. Well, in the end, the supposed departure of what has been Madrid's number nine in the last fourteen seasons has not been a hoax and at 35 years of age, after a worrying drop in performance in the last third of the year, he has decided to take the 200 million for two years that they offer him in Saudi Arabia, where he will not end up coinciding with Cristiano Ronaldo, whom he made bigger thanks to the generosity of his football. Benzema submitted to the egocentrism of the Portuguese and, when he was released by Florentino Pérez so as not to break the salary balance, Benzema reinvented himself as a decisive striker and led Real Madrid to the conquest of two Champions Leagues, adding a total of five and remaining one of the record of six of the mythical Gento.
However, this idyllic story could have changed radically if in the spring of 2009, with a closed transfer agreement with Olympique de Lyon, Txiki Begiristain, then Blaugrana's technical director, had not wanted to ensure that that promising striker of only 19 years was not of such a complicated character as was said. On his person hung a complaint for having sexual relations with a minor. The appointment between Txiki and Benzema took place in a cafeteria in the suburbs of Lyon, where the footballer still lived with his family, and it did not last more than half an hour. "With this time it was enough to see that he was of a difficult character and that he could bring us complications," explained Txiki to rule out the signing.
With the passage of time and the subsequent complaint for an alleged blackmail of which Valbuena, a teammate of the French team, accused him, from which he was removed by Deschamps from the list of summoned for the World Cup in Russia, won by the Gauls, he would be given the reason to the Barcelona coach. But if you consider the high performance in Madrid, in which he has been a key player in the last five Champions League, with the protection of Florentino, who has cared for him like a son, it would have been better if he signed for Barcelona. Above all because instead of choosing him and to replace Eto'o, Barça spent around 500 million signing center forwards with profiles as varied as Ibrahimovic, Villa, Alexis, Luis Suárez, Griezmann and Lewandowski. Almost nothing, all a five for one.
