Benzema misses Clasico against Barcelona

Karim Benzema, Real Madrid’s French striker, did not train with the rest of his teammates on the eve of the Clásico and was ruled out for the match against Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, due to a muscle ailment in his left calf.

Injured in last Monday’s game in Mallorca after scoring a brace, Benzema will not arrive in time for the Clásico and will not travel to play the matches with the French national team for which he had been called up.

Carlo Ancelotti loses his best striker.

Benzema was coming into the Clásico on his best run of the season after scoring as many as eight goals in five consecutive games. And he will have to choose between the option of keeping a pure 9 betting on Mariano Diaz or Luka Jovic, or tweak his approach with the figure of the ‘false 9’ with Marco Asensio, Eden Hazard and Isco Alarcon as the main options.

It will be the eighth match of the season without Benzema. So far without the French striker Real Madrid has won five games, one of them in extra time at Elche in Copa del Rey, drew one in the league visit to La Cerámica and conceded a defeat that cost them the cup elimination at San Mamés against Athletic Club.

In Benzema’s last three absences, Real Madrid’s scoring average has dropped, scoring just one goal against Granada and conceding zero in the Copa del Rey at San Mamés and the league visit to Villarreal. Karim, with 32 goals in 35 games played this season and top scorer in La Liga with 22 goals in 25 games, is the player who carries the offensive weight in Ancelotti’s team.

Benzema will also miss France’s friendlies against Ivory Coast and South Africa, for which he had been called up by Didier Deschamps.

He will stay in the Spanish capital to focus on his recovery, with the aim of making his comeback at Balaídos on Saturday, April 2 against Celta and being at 100 percent for the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea in London on April 6.