Karim Benzema has crowned his astonishing rehab with Les Blaises by being named France Football’s national player of the year.
The Real Madrid striker was recalled by France coach Didier Deschamps in late 2015 after he was fired over a scandal involving a sex tape of a former teammate.
“It had been almost six years since I last played, I had to feel, look, adapt a little in my own way. It didn’t take long,” Benzema, who turned 34 in December, told France Football in an interview published on Saturday.
Despite receiving a one-year suspended sentence in November, Benzema surpassed two previous winners, Kylian Mbappe and N’Golo Kante, in a France football poll announced on Friday.
Benzema is appealing his sentence for complicity in attempting to blackmail former France teammate Mathieu Valbuena with a sex tape.
Benzema has scored nine goals for France since his return.
Filling the role of a traditional central striker, he got along well with the other two attackers, Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann.
“I find myself in the best conditions” in the French team, he told France Football, adding that the partnership with Mbappé and Griezmann is “working well”, and compared to returning for the first time last summer. I got “better”.
“Now, when one falls, the other gets taller, and vice versa. That’s better,” he said.
Benzema scored four goals in the European Championship, including a pair as Switzerland were surprisingly eliminated in the round of 16 by the world champions, who scored two late goals and then a penalty in the round of 16 to draw 3–3. But won.
He ended a tumultuous calendar year, scoring five goals in four internationals as France returned by winning the Nations League and completing a successful World Cup qualifying campaign.
“I just have to stay at this level. Now we have to win collective trophies,” he said.
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