The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is witnessing a rare event after French striker Karim Benzema, the 2022 Ballon d’Or winner, was excluded from the roosters squad due to injury.
Benzema received a great shock, after his injury was renewed in the training session of the French national team, to confirm his absence from the World Cup.
According to the “Squawka” network specialized in football statistics, this is the first time in 44 years that the Golden Ball holder has been absent from the World Cup.
The network indicated that the last player to be crowned with the Golden Ball and subsequently missed the World Cup was Danish Alan Simonsen, after he was crowned with the Golden Ball in 1977 and missed the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, due to his country’s failure to qualify.
The Golden Ball holder has been present in every World Cup since 1982, starting with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the former Germany star in the 1982 World Cup, all the way to Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, who played the last two World Cups (2014 and 2018) and is the owner of the Ballon d’Or.
Despite Benzema reaching his 34th year, he did not participate in the World Cup except on one specific occasion, in the 2014 edition in Brazil, and was not included in the list of the French team that won the 2018 title due to his exclusion due to a judicial crisis.
