10 Best Strikers Of The 21st Century

Total career goals: 337 and counting

Karim Benzema is one the toughest players out there to judge. You don’t want to overlook him, as is so often the case, but at the same time, you don’t want to let his “under-appreciated” status make you paradoxically overrate him.

Not overlooking him means realizing the guy is a pure talent. He has FIFA Street dribbling skills, his ball control is top notch, and his linking-up is the very best you can expect from a striker. When Real Madrid’s team play was at its best, Benzema was essential to it. He’s currently CL 4th all-time top scorer with 62 goals, a competition he’s won four times. And considering France has bred so many elite players in the last decade or so, that Benzema was named thrice French Player of the Year is a serious accomplishment.

But not overrating him means also remembering that Benzema has scored 337 career goals. That’s 70 fewer than Aguero, and almost 120 fewer than Lewandowski, both the same age. He did win four Champions Leagues, but was never included in any UEFA Team or Squad of the Year. His only true remarkable contribution to Real Madrid’s unrivalled European success these past years, which has more to do with Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, Raphaël Varane, Marcelo, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, was that double croqueta against Atlético Madrid in the 2017 semis, a trick that led to an important away goal. And while it’s not always been completely fair, Benzema did miss three major international tournaments. He wasn't called up for the 2010 World Cup, but more significantly he missed Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup, meaning he had to watch France’s glory days from the couch.

At the end of the day, even if he was the most successful of the bunch, you have the feeling that Benzema, like most his compatriots from the infamous '87 Generation (Samir Nasri, Jéremy Menez and Hatem Ben Arfa), never truly realized his full potential.