Benzema on Mbappe in Madrid: “I think we would score twice as many goals — or maybe even triple!“

Real Madrid superstar Karim Benzema sat down for an interview with L’Équipe. The conversation was released today, and contains several interesting quotes about Real Madrid’s heavy loss to Barcelona, his tactical fit with Kylian Mbappe, and more. We’ve put together some of the interesting quotes below:

On having Kylian Mbappe in Real Madrid

“Yes, I say it often. I like to play with him in the national team and I would like to play with him at the club level,” Benzema said. “I think we would score twice as many goals. Or maybe even triple! With Mbappé I understand myself well in the national team because we know what the other is going to do. For example, we both like to go to the left but we will never be there both at the same time”

“I wished him a good game (before the Real Madrid - PSG game). Personally, I didn’t have any special pressure on that match. I just wanted my team to win, because I was disappointed with the first leg. I got there (with a hamstring injury), I hadn’t played for a month. And we had been bad, we had been dominated the whole game, we hadn’t even attacked... That was when I knew it was going to be something different in the 2nd leg.”

On losing 0 - 4 to Barcelona

“Well, it happens,” Benzema explained. “It depends on how you prepare for your match. PSG failed against Monaco, 3-0. All the big teams can go through that. For example, we, in Paris, in the first leg. If we won 5-0, it’s the same. El Clásico, watching from the stands, I had a bad time. We were on a good run and we had everything to continue. In fact, you can lose a game 4-0 and now worry. But you can’t lose like this. We didn’t show anything, we didn’t try, we didn’t show who we were. We let them play.”

On the upcoming game vs Chelsea

“There is no favourite,” Benzema said. “Look at PSG-Real: we were favourites in the first leg, maybe. And in the second leg, PSG had become ultra-favourites. So that doesn’t mean anything. Chelsea are a very good team, we will go there to look for a good result.”