With five days to go before France’s World Cup opener against Australia, physios and coaches are working around the clock to get their irreplaceable striker Karim Benzema ready. However, even though he’s training with the rest of the squad, the Ballon d’Or winner is looking rusty on the pitch. After all, he has played only 26 minutes of competitive football in the last month.Karim @Benzema sur le Burj Khalifa !🤩 pic.twitter.com/ZTxF6EgXWw— Real Madrid 🇫🇷 (@RMadridFrance_) November 17, 2022 Benzema joined Les Bleus training session on Thursday night in Doha, but he and defender Raphael Varane had to follow a different programme. The former Real Madrid teammates did some exercise with and without the ball and pleased the onlooking coaches, but the pace in their recovery still isn’t quite what head coach Didier Deschamps wanted.The tactician hoped that all 26 of his players would be fit for full training but instead had to send Benzema and Varane back to the locker room early to avoid any aggravations of their respective problems.##NAJAVA_MECA_6824950##There is still hope that both of those players will start their first Group D game, but it’s looking more and more likely that they will be left on the subs’ bench.Benzema played 26 minutes of Real Madrid’s 5-1 Champions League win over Celtic on 2 November, coming on as a second-half substitute. The last time he played a full 90 minutes was nearly a month ago, on 19 October at Elche. It was also the day he scored his most recent goal. The problems would soon arrive, though.Benzema & Varane. 🇫🇷🤍 pic.twitter.com/R1DlHItGrW— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) November 16, 2022 On 11 October, a month before the Socceroos match, Real Madrid announced that their captain was suffering from quadriceps in his left leg. The press releases successively referred to “discomfort “, “fatigue”, and “muscle injuries”. KB9 has briefly returned to training but had a setback.Group D – The crouching tiger France and the hidden Vikings, the DanesEven if he’s deemed fit to play, the lack of competitive football and the rhythm could seriously hamper the best players in the world for the past year. For a tournament where you need to be at your very best to help the nation – it’s another worry for the 2018 champions.
