Ballon d’Or Win: No Good Wishes From Ronaldo Yet – Benzema

Real Madrid star performer, KarimKarim Benzema says his former teammate, Cristiano Ronaldo is yet to offer his congratulations to him for winning the Ballon d’Or back in October.

Earlier last week, the French striker Benzema held high up the special prize to a rapturous crowd and welcome in his hometown of Lyon

But the current Manchester United forward Ronaldo, a staggering five times winner of the esteemed individual award, has not congratulated his former Real Madrid strike partner on his maiden triumph.

Benzema only spoke about Ronaldo after maintaining that he had always trusted himself to secure the Golden Ball, especially after stepping up his bid to make the dream a reality back in 2018.

“I always believed in myself, I knew that at some point or another with my qualities and my ambitions I could win it,” he told Téléfoot, adding; “That’s why the last four years, I pushed, pushed again to get that trophy.”

When asked whether Ronaldo had congratulated him, Benzema replied “no, not yet”, despite the award being given nearly a month ago.

Away from Ronaldo’s seeming snub and looking at the bigger picture, Benzema is the first Frenchman to win the award since Zinedine Zidane in 1998, and the 34-year-old was eager to play down any talk of pressure as Les Bleus go in defence of their World Cup crown in Qatar.

‘I’m proud to play in this World Cup,” Benzema said. “We know what it means. I can’t wait for it to start. Stress? No, just want to start soon. To be able to show what we can do in front of millions of people. To represent France. Inevitably, we think about it [a third world cup triumph].

“But I don’t tell myself that I have to win it, because I don’t play alone. We are a group and every match is a final. And the closer we get to it, the more we will say to ourselves that we have to win.

“On paper, we are the best and we should not hide it. But football is 11 against 11, but we will have to take our opponents with ambition and respect.”

The France national football team, Les Bleus (The Blues) will begin their World Cup title defence against Australia on November 22. – With Goal.com reports