Alarm in France: Benzema was injured in training, is not making his debut at the World Cup and is he out of the list?

Karim Benzema, who retired from training with the French squad this Saturday due to injury, will undergo medical tests throughout the afternoon to determine the nature and severity of his injury, said a source close to Les Bleus, who make their World Cup debut on Tuesday against Australia in defense of the title won at Russia 2018.

Real Madrid forward, injured since October in a thighparticipated this Saturday in his first collective session since the beginning of the concentration of Les Bleus, Monday at Clairefontaine.

In case of retirement, Didier Deschamps can replace the player until Monday, the eve of his entry into the field in Qatar.

Since receiving the Ballon d’Or on October 17 in Paris, Benzema, 34 years old. He only played one full match against Elche two days later. Real Madrid announced on 22 October that their striker was suffering from “muscle strain in the quadriceps of his left leg” and has since played only a few minutes against Celtic in Glasgow on 2 November.

Manager Didier Deschamps knows one of his stars has only appeared in twelve games since August. By comparison, he is ten games behind his strike partner Kylian Mbappé.

Benzema could blame this lack of competitive pace. “It’s clear that it’s better when you can chain matches, but Karim is a different case, because he’s less of a problem for a striker than for a midfielder,” player Adrien Rabiot said on Friday. “He is a great player and he knows how to handle himself,” he added.

Another member of the French squad, Bayern Munich defender Lucas Hernandez, also wanted to play down Benzema’s situation, as well as defender Raphaël Varane, who also has physical problems: “If they don’t arrive in time (to play against ‘Socceroos ‘), we have a fantastic squad, with regular players at the big clubs.”

The world champion is, perhaps, the team with the most casualties for this World Cup event.

​Striker Christopher Nkunku injured his knee in training on Tuesday, has torn ligaments and will be out for several months. But before reaching Arab lands, Lionel Messi’s PSG team-mate Prensnel Kimbembe withdrew from the league after failing to recover from an Achilles tendon injury. He thus joined the list that already included N’Golo Kanté and Paul Pogba, who will not be in Qatar.

Source: AFP

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