Karim Benzema: Thierry Henry's disbelief at Micah Richards' opinion of striker

Karim Benzema is the 2022 Ballon d’Or winner. And who can really argue with that?

The Frenchman helped Real Madrid win both La Liga and the Champions League, scoring 44 goals in 46 matches in the process.

It’s yet to be revealed quite how far Benzema’s triumph was over the likes of Sadio Mane (2nd) and Kevin De Bruyne (3rd) but we imagine it was a pretty comfortable victory for the 34-year-old.

At 34, Benzema became the oldest winner since the first recipient in 1956, Stanley Matthews.

While it's understandable why Benzema hasn't been able to pip Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo to the prize throughout his career, it's remarkable that it's taken so long for him to get the respect he deserves.

He may have finished fourth in the Ballon d'Or ranking last year but that was his first ever top 10 finish.

In fact before 2021, his best ranking was 17th in 2018.

And it may not have been until the 2021/22 season when football fans really started appreciating just how good Benzema is.

Benzema scored hat-tricks against Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea in the Champions League knockout rounds, before three goals over the two legs of their semi-final against Manchester City.

And it wasn't until that first hat-trick in the second leg against PSG, which saw Real Madrid win 3-1 to dump out the French side in the last-16, that a certain Micah Richards sat up and took notice.

On punditry duty after the game, Richards, in the company of Thierry Henry, admitted that he's only now starting to rate Benzema.

"But now, he's convinced me," Richards said when talking about Benzema.

Henry responded: "Just now?"

Richards added: "Of late, in the last six months. He's convinced that he's up there with Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski."

Henry, who