With Karim Benzema recently winning his first-ever Ballon d'Or, the Real Madrid and France star has spoken on how Cristiano Ronaldo's Los Blancos exit inspired him to achieve the highest individual honour in football.
On Monday night, Benzema was award the 66th Ballon d'Or as he became only the fifth Frenchman to hold the illustrious Golden Ball aloft.
This came after a remarkable 2021/22 season with Los Blancos, during which he was able to help the team win the UEFA Champions League and LaLiga titles by finding the back of the net an astonishing 44 times in all competitions while donning their famous white strip.
The French forward has come into his own since Ronaldo's departure from the Santiago Bernabeu. During the 2017/18 campaign, Ronaldo's last at Real, Benzema scored only 12 goals all season, but since the Portuguese left for Juventus in 2018, the Lyon-born forward's lowest tally has been 27 goals in a season.
"It was an honour to play with him [Ronaldo], he's a beast," Benzema said after the Ballon d'Or ceremony, as per the Daily Mirror.
"The day he left, the ambition to be a better player then entered my head.
"Since he left, I've been motivated to do more things on the pitch."
The pair played alongside one another for nine years after they both arrived in the Spanish capital in 2009, but during that time it was Ronaldo who was the star, scoring 450 Real goals in 438 appearances to become the club's all-time leading goalscorer.
Benzema, not to be outshone, is now Los Blancos' second all-time leading goalscorer with 328 strikes.
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Speaking to Onze Mondial in an interview earlier this year, Benzema revealed how he studied Ronaldo's game closely during their time together.
"When I watched him, I tried to understand everything he did: the goals, the shots, the passes, the ball control," he said.
"I dissected everything about Ronaldo. That's why I can say: It's impossible to achieve the same."
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