April 27, (THEWILL) – Vinicius Junior has endorsed his Real Madrid teammate and strike partner, Karim Benzema, to win the Ballon d’Or this year, insisting that “there are no words” to describe Benzema’s remarkable form.
The French forward scored twice in Madrid’s 4-3 loss to Manchester City in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday.
The first was a tricky twisting finish to bring Madrid back into the game after falling behind 2-0, and the second was a calm Panenka penalty late in the game to keep the tie alive going into the reverse fixture at home.
Only Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski’s 48 goals in 43 matches has outpaced the Benzema goal tally of 41 for Los Blancos this season, in the top five leagues in Europe.
After Cristiano Ronaldo, Ferenc Puskas, Alfredo Di Stefano, and Hugo Sanchez, the 34-year-old became the sixth Madrid player to score over 40 goals in a single season.
Benzema also has 14 goals in the Champions League this season, one more than Lewandowski, whose Bayern Munich team was eliminated in the quarter-finals by Villarreal.
Vinicius believes Benzema should win the Ballon d’Or in 2022, despite finishing behind Lionel Messi, Lewandowski, and Jorginho last year.
His scoring form left Vinicius gushing: “There are no words that can describe how Benzema is playing. He deserves the Ballon d’Or. I hope my brother Benzema ends up winning La Liga, the Champions League and Ballon d’Or.”
Benzema scored a hat-trick in the last-16 triumph over Paris Saint-Germain and a treble in the first leg of the quarter-final win over Chelsea.
Only once in a single Champions League season has he scored more than nine goals in the knockout stages, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring ten in the 2016-17 season.
Former teammate, Mesut Özil, tweeted on Tuesday, “Give my boy Benzi the Ballon D’Or.” expressing his support for Benzema to win the Ballon d’Or.
Rio Ferdinand, a former Manchester United defender and football pundit, concurred with the judgement, quoting the tweet with the word “Facts”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
