{"id":10241,"date":"2020-12-16T08:08:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T09:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=10241"},"modified":"2020-12-16T10:03:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T10:03:25","slug":"real-madrids-benzema-best-french-forward-ever-says-zidane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=10241","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid\u2019s Benzema best French forward ever, says Zidane"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/arysports.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Benzema-and-Zidane.jpg\" width=\"742\" height=\"482\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Madrid:\u00a0Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane hailed his forward Karim Benzema as the best French striker of all time after his two goals helped them beat a stubborn Athletic Bilbao 3-1 at home on Tuesday in La Liga.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Madrid played the final 77 minutes with an extra man after Raul Garcia\u2019s early red card, but the visitors did not make life easy for the champions and Ander Capa scored in the second half to cancel out Toni Kroos\u2019s opening strike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Benzema, however, showed his class late in the game, restoring Madrid\u2019s lead by heading in a Dani Carvajal cross before rounding off the victory by finishing off a rapid counterattack in added time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">The coach was asked if his compatriot was the best French striker ever after the game and he had no doubts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">\u201cFor me he is the best, because he has spent so long at Real Madrid and he keeps proving himself,\u201d Zidane told a news conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">\u201cHe has played over 500 games and scored so many goals. His achievements and honours speak for themselves. For me he is the best, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Benzema has turned into a talismanic figure for Real since Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s departure in 2018 but has not featured for France since 2015 following an incident involving his then national team mate Mathieu Valbuena.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">But Zidane still ranked him above the likes of France greats Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet and current players Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">\u201cHe is a more complete player now than he used to be. He is not a pure number nine, he doesn\u2019t just think about scoring goals and that\u2019s what I love about him,\u201d Zidane added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">\u201cHe loves to combine with his team mates and create chances for them but he also knows how to score goals and he does that when the team needs him the most like he did today. That\u2019s what Karim is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/arysports.tv\/barca-face-psg-champions-league-last-16\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barca to face PSG in Champions League last 16<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Madrid:\u00a0Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane hailed his forward Karim Benzema as the best French striker of all time after his two goals helped them beat <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=10241\" title=\"Real Madrid\u2019s Benzema best French forward ever, says Zidane\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10243,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10241\/revisions\/10243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}