Benzema looks to put Messi in Clasico shade

Madrid: Karim Benzema is finally filling the void left by Cristiano Ronaldo and on Wednesday his task will be to trump Lionel Messi.

It will be the fifth Clasico since Ronaldo departed Real Madrid in 2018 and Spain's most prestigious fixture has not been quite the same without him, a duel lost between the world's two greatest players.

But Benzema's surge means Madrid have rediscovered their punch up front while Barcelona know their opponents now possess a player who may not be able to rival Messi but, like him, could win this match on his own. "We often talk about Karim these days," said Real coach Zinedine Zidane after Benzema scored against Espanyol this month.

"He's matured and I think that's what makes the difference.

"We all have small defects, things to improve. But what he is asked to do is to chase and he does it, to score goals and he does it. I can't ask anything more of him, only that he continues like this."

When Ronaldo was sold to Juventus, the theory was Benzema would have to be more prolific and Gareth Bale more prominent, a chance for the Welshman to finally to revel in the limelight.

In truth, only one of them has fulfilled those hopes even if Bale's trajectory has again been flattened by fitness issues and Benzema's only began to turn upwards after Madrid's disastrous start to last season, which saw two coaches sacked in five months.

Yet few could argue he has been Real Madrid's best player for the majority of 2019, ahead of Eden Hazard, signed for 100 million euros last summer, and Luka Modric, last year's winner of the Ballon d'Or.

He has been more consistent than Sergio Ramos and more straight-forward than Bale, despite the possibility of a criminal trial still hanging over him for his alleged role in the blackmail case involving Mathieu Valbuena in 2015.

That controversy still denies Benzema a place in the French national team and while Didier Deschamps' blackout has been vindicated by France's World Cup triumph last year, they continue to miss out on one the world's most lethal centre forwards. "I work for Madrid," Benzema said on Sunday after he scored Madrid's 95th-minute equaliser against Valencia. "What is said over there I don't listen to."

Perhaps that has been to Madrid's advantage and the test now for this resurgent Benzema is to define the biggest games in the way Messi has done his whole career.