Between Karim Benzema and the France team, the story combined with the imperfect. At the end of the press conference, a French journalist or foreigner devoted himself to putting the subject back on the table, except that for Didier Deschamps the subject in question was never the one of the day. Case heard. To everyone’s surprise, the coach nevertheless retained Real Madrid center-forward in his list of twenty-six players for the next Euro (from June 11 to July 11) after five and a half years of banishment.
At 33, Benzema will never make up for lost time and selections, nor the title of world champion won without him in Russia in 2018. “I don’t have the capacity to go back, nobody has it, neither does Karim, the most important is today and tomorrow”, commented Deschamps almost philosopher when discussing his choice live on TF1 and M6 Tuesday, May 18. On his Twitter account, the player said to himself “So proud of this return to the France team and of the trust that I am given”.
So proud of this return to the France team and of the trust that I am given. Thanks to my family, my friends … https://t.co/fzqnuFtVPB
But before thinking about tomorrow, already fantasizing an unprecedented association with a Kylian Mbappé whose professional career began two months after Benzema’s last blue match in 2015, we had to talk. Didier Deschamps does not indicate when or where and refuses to deliver any ” a word “. The most important is elsewhere. The coach and the footballer ended up getting together. “To arrive at this decision, there were important steps. A very important one, we saw each other and we discussed at length. Afterwards, I had a long reflection “, admits the boss of the Blues.
The peace of the brave
From Didier Deschamps, it is said that his legendary pragmatism stops when the man is touched in his privacy. It’s no secret, the Basque had a very bad experience with the release of Karim Benzema in the Spanish daily Marca in June 2016 where the latter suggests that the coach has “Yielded under the pressure of a racist part of France” to deprive him of the Euro to come to his country.
His five and a half years away from the Blues, the Madrilenian owes them as much to this declaration and its consequences (the Breton residence of Mr. Deschamps was then tagged with the word “racist”) as to the affair of the sextape of which they arise. Since October 2015, Benzema has been suspected of being involved in an attempt at blackmail during a rally of the Blues in Clairefontaine, towards his former teammate Valbuena about a video of a sexual nature. The player was referred to the Versailles Criminal Court from October 20 to 22 for “Complicity in attempted blackmail”.
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