{"id":272,"date":"2022-04-07T09:51:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T09:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.365scores.com\/news\/?p=272"},"modified":"2022-04-07T09:51:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T09:51:24","slug":"benzema-the-hero-yet-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/benzema-the-hero-yet-again","title":{"rendered":"Benzema the Hero yet again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Karim Benzema is oozing class and confidence while producing the best season of his career, and he has helped Real Madrid put one foot in the UEFA Champions League semifinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Another Champions League night, another Karim Benzema masterclass ? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/O3O5Go6hFR\">pic.twitter.com\/O3O5Go6hFR<\/a><\/p>\u2014 GOAL (@goal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/goal\/status\/1511816234211360771?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 6, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>Benzema struck a courageous hat-trick against Chelsea on Wednesday to give Real a <em>3-1<\/em> advantage ahead of the return leg in Madrid next week. This comes after Benzema\u2019s heroics versus Paris St-Germain in the Round of 16 second leg when the Frenchman scored a second-half hat-trick to overturn a two-goal deficit and dump the Parisians out of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Benzema buried two fantastic headers within four minutes of each other in the first half and completed his fourth UCL hat-trick less than 60 seconds into the second half at Stamford Bridge. Aged 34 years and 108 days Benzema is the oldest hat-trick scorer in the Champions League, a record which he made his own 28 days ago with his triple against PSG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">?? 34-year-old forward Karim Benzema has scored 37 goals in 36 appearances in all competitions this season ?<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UCL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#UCL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bY5ZJzjlZs\">pic.twitter.com\/bY5ZJzjlZs<\/a><\/p>\u2014 UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChampionsLeague\/status\/1511820324224000001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 6, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>The Madrid no.9 has notched 11 goals in eight Champions League outings, with Robert Lewandowski the only player to have netted more goals in Europe&#8217;s primary club competition this season. Benzema is also the leading scorer in La Liga this term on 24 goals \u2013 ten more than anybody else \u2013 with Real Madrid 12 points clear at the top of the table and on course to capture a record 35th league title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 34-year-old has evidently gotten better with age and his most recent three-goal haul takes Benzema\u2019s tally to 37 for the season, officially the best goal-scoring campaign of his career. Before the current season his greatest return in a single campaign at club level was 32 goals in 2011\/12. On top of his astounding form at club level, Benzema also made a return to the France camp ahead of last year\u2019s European Championships after six years away from the national team. Benzema&#8217;s nine goals in 13 appearances for Les Bleus in 2021 is the striker&#8217;s best goal return at international level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since Cristiano Ronaldo left Madrid in 2018 Benzema has stepped up as Real\u2019s main man and he has netted 25+ goals in four consecutive seasons since Ronaldo&#8217;s departure \u2013 a feat which the French forward achieved just three times across his first nine seasons at the Bernab\u00e9u. Benzema recently surpassed Alfredo Di Stefano as Real Madrid&#8217;s 3rd-highest goalscorer of all-time, with Ronaldo (450) and Ra\u00fal (323) the only players with more goals for Los Blancos than Benzema (316).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was announced last month that the Ballon d\u2019Or would be awarded at the end of the season, rather than at year-end as in years gone by, and Benzema is unquestionably a leading contender to scoop the famed accolade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Karim Benzema is oozing class and confidence while producing the best season of his career, and he has helped Real Madrid put one foot in the UEFA Champions League semifinals. Another Champions League night, another Karim Benzema masterclass ? pic.twitter.com\/O3O5Go6hFR\u2014 GOAL (@goal) April 6, 2022 Benzema struck a courageous hat-trick against Chelsea on Wednesday to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10,186,185,160,60,59,108,57],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer","tag-chelsea","tag-france","tag-karim-benzema","tag-la-liga","tag-psg","tag-real-madrid","tag-soccer","tag-uefa-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.365scores.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}