Benzema repays coach’s faith in him

AFTER struggling in his first two Euro 2020 outings and facing calls to be dropped, France’s Karim Benzema repaid coach Didier Deschamps’ faith with two goals to help the world champions qualify top of Group F on Wednesday.

Les Bleus’ 2-2 draw with defending champions Portugal gave them five points and a last16 meeting with Switzerland on Monday.

Benzema, back in the squad after a nearly six-year absence including a row with Deschamps, looked out of sorts in the first two matches against Germany and Hungary.

Before the tournament, in a warm-up game, the Real Madrid forward had missed a third consecutive penalty for France.

Yet it was Benzema who stepped up for the penalty on the stroke of half-time - rather than fellow strikers Kylian Mbappe or Antoine Griezmann - to wrongfoot Rui Patricio and make it 1-1 after Cristiano Ronaldo’s opener, also with a spot-kick.

“It’s nice to see. He was looking for goals but he had not lost his self-confidence or my faith for that matter,” said Deschamps, who ignored calls in France for the return of Olivier Giroud to the starting line-up.

Benzema’s clinical shot from Paul Pogba’s through ball put France ahead again early in the second half, and Ronaldo’s second penalty was not enough to dislodge them from first in the Group F standings.

The ever-threatening Mbappe won France’s penalty on Wednesday and Griezmann snatched a goal against Hungary in their last game but Benzema is now the team’s top scorer in this tournament.

“There was a lot of pressure on me, which is normal, but I never gave up and was focused on creating space and chances,” said Benzema, a Muslim of Algerian descent who had accused Deschamps of bowing to racists when leaving him out in 2016.

“I didn’t really have doubts but I knew there were a lot of expectations after being absent for five or six years.”

Benzema had not scored for France since October 8, 2015 when he grabbed two in a 4-0 win against Armenia.

“He needed those goals, the country needed him to score,” said 1998 world champion Youri Djorkaeff.

France centre-back Raphael Varane was delighted for his Real Madrid teammate. “It was not easy for him. Now he’ll be super confident and a self-confident Karim is what we need,” he said.

Meanwhile, Portugal coach Fernando Santos has described the dilemma he faced during his side’s draw with France on Wednesday, but insisted his players went out looking for the win even though they risked being knocked out.

Portugal came third in the group to set up a tough last-16 tie with Belgium, who won all their group games, in Seville on Sunday.

“I couldn’t be sure of anything,” Santos saidafter a rollercoaster final evening in Group F.

“I could have tried to make us go for a third goal but if we’d lost, Germany would gone through ahead of us. What mattered was trying to win while maintaining our quality and shape.”

Santos said he tried to not focus on events in Munich and had warned his players not to either.

“We did what we had to do. I even warned the players to not think about the other results as it wouldn’t bring us anything positive. But the players lived so intensely that when I screamed to go forward my voice no longer reached them,” he said.

“The team always wanted to win, but we also knew we couldn’t lose. Portugal did everything to win.”

Portugal have only three days to rest ahead of the game with Belgium, who last played on Monday, but Santos tried to play down the significance of the fact his side will have less time to prepare.

“We improved a lot compared to the other game. Now we have to improve some more before we play Belgium. Any opponent will have difficulties against us because we are always able to score,” he added.

“But we cannot view this as a handicap. We’ll analyse the Belgium team and prepare the game with the same goal as always, to progress.”