Real Madrid fans on X have been reading a resurfaced quote from Jose Mourinho about Karim Benzema, saying that if there were three Benzemas on a big team, all of them would still start.
He said: "Benzema is a versatile player. If there were three Karims in a big team, they would all play. One would be a scorer, the other leader, the last one would play on the left.”
Benzema first broke onto the scene at Real Madrid after Mourinho became the manager at Real Madrid in 2010.
He was signed in 2009, but did not have the best of seasons in his first year, scoring only nine goals across all competitions. Soon after, when Mourinho entered the picture, Benzema started playing some great football and became a staple in the Real Madrid attack.
Karim Benzema is one of the most versatile strikers to ever grace a football pitch
Fast forward to now, and Benzema is considered one of the greatest strikers in the history of football, with such an obvious knack for goals, assists, and creating for his teammates.
His best quality was his versatility. He would mould himself in whatever shape Real Madrid needed him in. If they needed a proper goalscorer, he started doing that after Cristiano Ronaldo left. If they needed him to primarily work for Ronaldo, he started creating space for him, and generating less shots.
He is easily one of the smartest football players to have ever played the game, and Mourinho's quote embodies it perfectly. He is a leader, goalscorer, chance creator, all in one, and has all the tools necessary to be a fit in whatever system Real Madrid would want to play him in.
For a team, having three of the same profiles, regardless of how great they are, is generally never good, because they end up overlapping and coinciding.
With Benzema, it was very different, because in just one player, the club used to get so many different profiles to play around with.
The Frenchman was literally good enough to play on the wing if necessary, and possessed the IQ to do a really good job there, despite always being a striker.
These are the things that make it so interesting for Real Madrid to have had a player like him in the past, and this is also exactly why Mourinho rates him so highly. He may not be in his prime anymore, but when he was, there simply was not a striker who brought in as much value to his side as Benzema did.
There would be players who scored more than him, but his game was never just about the goals, and the more time passes, the more everyone else is going to realise it.
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