Real Madrid: Benzema can match goals record against Getafe
The Real Madrid striker has scored three in his last four at Getafe's stadium and is just two away from matching his best-ever return of 32 in a season.
Once famously described by José Mourinho as a cat, Karim Benzema has been baring his claws this season in an otherwise fairly tame Real Madrid side and hit a first hat-trick since December 2015 - when he managed two in the space of two weeks against Malmö and Rayo Vallecano – against Athletic last weekend.
Going into the game against Getafe on Thursday, Benzema, always more the supporting artist to the brushwork of Cristiano Ronaldo, is in full renaissance. The Frenchman has scored each of Madrid’s last eight goals and has been involved in 13 of his side’s last 16 in all competitions. Since he found the net against Valladolid on 24 February, Benzema has hit 11 goals in LaLiga alone and provided three assists, taking his tally for 2018-19 to 30, two short of his best-ever season for Real Madrid and one shy of his record for Lyon.
Benzema on the cusp of history in Getafe
It is a reawakening with its roots in the latter stages of last season's Champions League, when he scored twice in the semis and once in the final, and that has blossomed without the requirement to act as a foil for Ronaldo.
After the past few weeks, Few would bet against Benzema matching at least one of those marks in the Coliseum, where he has traditionally enjoyed the run of the park: the Real striker has faced Getafe 15 times, scoring eight and providing six assists. In three of his last four visits to the southern suburb of the capital Benzema has found the net and on the one occasion he did not, in 2015-15, he pulled off one of the finest pieces of play he has ever performed in a Real shirt - somewhat reminiscent of his famous touchline trickery against Atlético in the Champions League in 2016-17 - which resulted in a tap-in for Ronaldo.
Overall against Getafe, Benzema has played 1,110 minutes in the league and contributed directly to 14 goals, at a rate of one every 72 minutes against the Champions League aspirants.