Benzema Goal at Metz

September 27th, 2007 | by: Laurie |

This is the video of Karim Benzema’s third goal at the Metz-Lyon game I was at on Sept. 15. (Look! That’s me in seat 1179! Or something like that.)

This gives you an idea of why I’m so excited at the possibility of a Karim Benzema-Hatem Ben Arfa combination. There’s a lot more going on here than a complete defensive collapse. (Three players on Ben Arfa, yet nobody to stop the pass? Oops. But I still like Metz.)

Pay particular attention to the interplay between Benzema and Ben Arfa. It was amazing. And with Karim just nineteen and Hatem twenty, they have the potential to be an explosive combination for France in the future. Add Samir Nasri into the mix, and I’m thinking World Cup in 2010, or perhaps 2014. A definite possibility.

France World Cup Blog RSS Feed

http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

Benzema and Ben Arfa have this amazing chemistry because they’ve been playing together for several years, both on OL’s youth teams and then for the senior squad. They are kind of like Malouda and Abidal in that I would hate to see them broken up. When they are both on the pitch together (which is rarer than you would think), they both perform their best. It’s like they can find each other with their eyes closed.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Watching this, I realized what I enjoy so much about Benzema. He PLAYS soccer. Meaning he’s like a kid. It’s still fun for him. (Think about that goal for France off the Nasri corner back in the spring. Were they having fun or what?)

That’s what was so enjoyable about seeing him playing with Ben Arfa in this game. Their whole attitude is, “Let’s see what we can pull off THIS time!” And it works.
Doumé

That’s a pleasure to see, for sure, there is a definite spark there!
I noticed also that the Scottish defense was a whole lot better disciplined though!
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

Laurie, check out this short clip of Benzema. It was filmed last season (hence the presence of John Carew), but it’s a peek into his life.

Karim Benzema
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

I keep on being tagged as spam I swear, I’m not trying to pimp viagra.

Anyway, I wanted to share two really cool Ben Arfa moments. I’m a huge fan of this kid and I really think he’s the most talented player in L1 (sheer talent, not discipline).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QGZDdkCtXU
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tgZjX_Wc4

I’ve also been meaning to ask, did you ever see the tres tres horrible Barca-Lyon game?
Bman

Ben Arfa is definitly a playmaker. It was quite a shame they didnt let him play from the start against Barcelona because without him Benzema realy did look ineffective.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Inara, excellent videos. The Ben Arfa-Benzema combination has the potential to be truly amazing.

I din’t catch the Barca-Lyon debacle. I had to be out for the first half hour and was already debating whether or not to fork over my money to UEFA for the remainder of the game. I checked the scoreline and saw that they were already down 0-1 on a Clerc own goal and decided against it.

I’m going to have to look into more of the illicit sites. I tried to download TVAnts for the Lyon-Lens game today and couldn’t get it to download on this computer. Now that I’ve seen the final scoreline I’m really wishing I had soldiered on and searched out a site that worked. Do you have a link for relatively safe download and viewing sites?
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

TVants never works for me. I prefer to use sopcast, which I think is more stable and safer (and far easier to use – it’s in English!).

Download it here: http://www.sopcast.com/

Then on matchdays, find the streams you need here: http://www.myp2p.eu (sometimes you need to copy down the address and open it yourself if it doesn’t open right away in the media player).

BTW, Benzema scored again today against Lens. That gives him 9 L1 goals in nine games!