Karim Benzema Net Worth, Wife, Age, Height, Family, Career Highights and more
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- Karim Benzema Biography and Net worth
- Karim Benzema Early Years
- Karim Benzema Club Career
- Karim Benzema Real Madrid
- Karim Benzema International Career
- Karim Benzema Personal Life
Karim Benzema Biography and Net worth
Karim Benzema is a French professional footballer playing as the striker for and captains Real Madrid in La Liga club. He is referred to as one of the best strikers of all time and is Real Madrid’s all time second-highest goalscorer. Even with some controversies in his long career he undisputedly still remains one of the best football players of this generation.
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Brief Bio:-
Full Name: Karim Mostafa Benzema
Age: 36 years
Height: 1.85m
Weight: 80 kg (approx)
Position: Striker
Net Worth: $75M (approx)
Being regarded as one of the best strikers of this generation, according to sportslumo.com, Benzema earns a weekly salary of Los Blancos is $221.7K and his annual salary amounts to $12 million approximately. His transfer fee when transferring to Real Madrid in 2009 was reportedly $38 million rising to as much as $44.5 million based on incentives. Along with this, Benzema has a variety of endorsements with brands like, Adidas, Hyundai, SFR(Société française du radiotéléphone), LCL(Le Crédit Lyonnais), Bwin and EA Sports through which he earns as well.
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Early years:
Karim Mostafa Benzema was born on 19th December, 1987 to Hafid Benzema (father) and Wahida Djebbara (mother) in Lyon, France. He is the sixth son out of the nine children that his parents had. He began his football career at his hometown club, Bron Terraillon SC at the mere age of eight. Here was the place where he was famously nicknamed Coco by his friends. He started gaining attention after scoring two goals in an under-10 match against the Lyon Youth Academy. Lyon officials upon observing him wanted to sign the child, but the president of Bron Terraillon; Santa Cruz refused, the subsequent year after talks with Benzema’s father he was allowed to trial for Lyon and thereby, officialy joied the academy.
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Club Career:-
Lyon:
- When joining the team, for a good number of years,Benzema served as ballboy for the senior tema matches at Lyon and slowly ascended up the youth categories in the academy.
- Benzema at under-16 level scored 38 goals in the Championnat National des 16 ans, i.e., the domestic league for under-16 youth players in France.
- Ahead of the 2004-05 season, he was promoted to the club’s main team.
2004-07:
- He made his professional debut on January 15, 2005 against Metz, wherein he appeared as a substitute for Pierre-Alain Frau. The team won the match with a 2-0 win.
- After the match he then signed his first professional contract with a three-year deal.
- His first professional start was made on 2 April 2005 after three consecutive matches as a substitute where they again won the match with a 1-0 win.
- Benzema made his 2005-06 UEFA Champions League debut on 6 December, in the final stage match against Rosenburg, a Norwegian club. He scored his first professional goal here, with a 2-1 win. He later scored his first professional double in a 4-0 win against Grenoble in Coupe de France. On March 4, 2006 he scored his first professional league goal against Ajaccio in a 3-1 win.
- Benzema continued participating extremely well throughout the 2006-07 season, with him making his season debut in 2006 Trophée des Champions against Paris Saint-Germain.
2007-09
- For the 2007-08 season, Benzema toppedthe league with 20 goals, with four in the Champions League, one in Coupe de la Ligue, and six in Coupe de France matches.
- He also scored a hat-trick against Metz on 15 September, and Lens as well.
- He extended his contract with Lyon on March 13, 2008 until 2013. With the signing of this contract Benzema became one of the highest paid footballers in France.
- That season, He was named Ligue 1 Player of the season, selected to the Team of the Year, and was awarded du Meilleur Buteur for being the league’s top scorer that season.
- He also won the Bravo award 2008 and was also shortlisted by France Football a French magazine for the 2008 Ballon d’Or award.
- The first half of the 2008-09 season went relatively better than the second half of it for Benzema.
- In the first half, he scored against Grenoble, Saint-Étienne and Nice causing speculations of Benzema transferring arise due to his early goals.
- In the second half of the season, Benzema endured a rough patch, scoring no goals in the first three games. He later recovered by scoring his 11th and 12th goal of the season against Nice in a 3-1 win and Nancy in a 2-0 win, respectively.
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Real Madrid:
- Benzema made his Real Madrid debut on August 29, 2009 against Deportivo La Coruña; he started the match but was later substituted in the second-half. Real Madrd won with a victory of 3-2.
- He made his Champions League debut for the club on 30 September in a group stage tie against Marseille.
- In late November, he started appearing mainly as a substitute which began with the Spanish media criticizing him for his under-performance and difficulties in learning the language.
- It took about another year for him to start performing to his potential again, with him scoring the club’s 300th goal in the Champions League era and a hat-trick in an 8-0 win against Levante in the Copa del Rey.
- In the 2011 Copa del Rey Finals and Champions League knockout stage he appeared in one of the four matches against Barcelona, which were also one of the most highly anticipated matches.
- Benzema has continued to be one of the best strikers of the current generation.
- On 28 September, 2021 he became the first player in the history to score in 17 Consecutive Champion League seasons after scoring a penalty in 1-2 loss against Sheriff in the group stage.
- On 22 October, Benzema scored Madrid’s 1000th Champions League goal against Shakhtar Donetsk.
- On 9 March he scored a hat-trick within 17 minutes against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League at the age of 34 becoming the oldest player to do so.
- On August 10, 2020 he brought his goal tally to 324 in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup becoming Real Madrd’d all time second-highest top goal scorer.
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International Career:
Benzema started his international career relatively early with him having earned caps at all levels for which he was eligible, leaving the under-16 team. He has scored in the 2010 World Cup against Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and many more. He scored in the Euro 2012, after a year of not representing his country in a 2-1 defeat to Norway. In the 2014 FIFA World Cup Benzema made his long-awaited debut, with a 3-0 win against Honduras. He was named by FIFA as the man of the match. He was left off the roster for the 2018 World Cup and returned to any international games for his country after five years on May 18, 2021, in UEFA Euro 2020, wherein he won the Euro 2020 bronze boot.He announced his retirement from the national team on 19 December, 2022.
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Personal Life:
Family
Karim Mostafa Benzema was born on 19th December, 1987 to Hafid Benzema (father) and Wahida Djebbara (mother) in Lyon, France. He is the sixth son out of the nine children that his parents had. Two of his younger brothers are also footballers, playing at amateur level and at youth academy. He is practicing Muslim who also observes fast during Ramadan.
Relationships
According to reports, Benzema had a daughter named Mélia on 3 February 2014, with his then-girlfriend Chloé de Launay. On 5 May 2017, his girlfriend Cora Gauthier gave birth to their son Ibrahim.
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Health:
Benzema has suffered from a variety of injuries throughout his career with most of them being thigh- related injuries, a recent one also forcing him out of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Best Records(stats):
| Apps(Subs) | 805(136) |
| Goals(P) | 412(30) |
| Assists | 126 |
| Yellows | 17(0) |
| Reds | 0 |
| Min Played | 55746 |