The French striker is set to stay with Real Madrid until at least 2022 following new contract extension.
Karim Benzema has discretely turned into one of Real Madrid’s longest tenured players. He’ll have the opportunity to add to that tenure as he and the club have agreed to sign a new one-year extension.
According to Diario AS, Benzema’s contract was set to expire in 2021. His extension will now seem him at the club until 2022.
The Spanish giants have a policy regarding players over the age 30 and that is why Benzema was only offered a one-year extension. However, the deal will not be made official until the end of the season.
Benzema has enjoyed a successful yet underrated Real Madrid career. He arrived from Lyon in 2009 so when his current deal ends, he’ll have spent more than a decade at the club.
The main reason he’s been overlooked or overshadowed at Real Madrid is because he had to share the stage with Cristiano Ronaldo. They both arrived at the same time and Ronaldo was the club’s marquee signing.
He played second fiddle to Ronaldo and played for him. The Frenchman would drag defenders to open up space for Ronaldo and would set up the Portuguese to score. He was selfless on the pitch.
Perhaps because of that selflessness, his importance to the team was called into question whenever he went through a scoring drought. But because he was important to Ronaldo, he always wanted Benzema to play.
They’ve brought in strikers during his tenure but because of how much Florentino Perez believed in him, none of them were ever brought in to replace hum but rather to give him rest.
With Ronaldo gone, he was able to turn into the team’s focal point and this season has had one of his best seasons since joining the side. He sits only one goal behind Lionel Messi for La Liga’s top goalscorer.
He’s been integral to Zinedine Zidane and contributed heavily to their back-to-back-to-back Champions League titles. When all is said and done, Benzema is going to go down as one of the best to ever play for Real Madrid.