Benzema’s fitness struggle ahead of France’s World Cup campaign

The days go by and Karim Benzema exhibits few indicators of being totally recovered from his hamstring damage. L’Équipe have reported that, the Real Madrid striker, together with Raphaël Varane, educated alone as soon as once more on Friday regardless of having taken half within the first quarter-hour of the session together with the remainder of his teammates. It was a repeat of what had happened on Thursday because the France roster educated collectively for the primary time after arriving in Doha. Benzema did some mild work with the ball after which went off with Varane to comply with a tailor-made coaching plan with the French physio.

As for Varane, there have been clear indicators of enchancment. According to L’Équipe, Varane was feeling significantly better after his solo coaching session on Friday, which implies there’s an excellent probability he’ll be again coaching with the remainder of the group on Saturday. There’s less optimism so far as Benzema is worried, to the purpose that nobody within the occasion is ready to substantiate that the world champions will be capable of begin the defence of their trophy with a full-strength line-up in opposition to Australia on Tuesday.

Benzema has been battling a hamstring damage suffered whereas enjoying for Real Madrid for greater than a month. While these closest to him and the participant himself have insisted that the damage isn’t a critical one, the fact is that he has proven few indicators of enchancment in that point. On Saturday, France will practice at 1pm ET time and every little thing factors to the present Ballon d’Or winner being absent as soon as once more.