The question was a trap. He walked straight into it
Top 50 forwards of all time, is he in there? Yes.
Top 40? Yes. Top 30? Yes. Top 20, top 10, top 5. Still yes. Karim Benzema never blinked once in the clip filmed for EWC and posted on social media on Tuesday.
Top 3? Yes again.
Then came the one step too far. Number one of all time? He stops there. He turns the last box down and hands the title to Ronaldo Nazario, the Brazilian, the best No 9 the game has produced in his view.
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A player with no club talking about legacy
The timing gives it all a strange edge. Benzema has no club. He left Al-Hilal as a free agent this summer after a Saudi spell that never took off.
Lyon was on the table. Seriously so, for several weeks. His contract situation killed it, and the homecoming never happened. At 38, the former Ballon d’Or winner sits between offers and silence, waiting on whatever arrives next.
That is the chair he was sitting in when he placed himself in the top three forwards in history. Not from the summit of an active career. From somewhere in between.
Picking Ronaldo says something
Most would have gone with Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi. Benzema goes for the Brazilian Ronaldo, the version before the knees gave out, the one his generation rewound on VHS and YouTube.
It is a supporter’s answer as much as a player’s. He named the template rather than the trophy cabinet.
The rest is familiar territory. Benzema has never struggled to say what he thinks he is worth, and he has been saying it for years, usually without being asked.
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