Karim Benzema: “My goal against Liverpool was not luck, but work”

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Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema attributed his opening goal in the Champions League final down to hard work and not luck.

The Frenchman was in the right place to deflect Loris Karius’s attempted throw out back into the Liverpool net to give Real Madrid the lead in Kiev but refutes the suggestion that the freak goal was simply a matter of luck.

According to Benzema, who has been left out of Didier Deschamps French World Cup squad, it was his hard work that got him that goal on a night to forget for the Liverpool ‘keeper.

Real Madrid won the game 3-1 to become the first side since the 1970s to win three Champions League titles back-to-back, but two of Madrid’s goals came from woeful errors from Liverpool’s German stopper.

The first of those came when he attempted to throw the ball out, underarm, to a defender only for Karim Benzema to stick out a foot and deflect the ball back past the ‘keeper.

After the final whistle, much of the analysis has put the goal down to poor play by Karius and luck.

However, speaking to Kuwaiti television it is clear that this is not an opinion shared by the goal scorer.

“My goal from Kiev, it was not a matter of luck,” he told AS, via the Daily Mail.

“I do not believe in luck, it’s a matter of work.

“It’s an easy goal but you have to be there, in the right place and at the right time, to put it in.”

Liverpool reacted well by grabbing a quick equaliser through Sadio Mane but there was nothing anyone could do when Gareth Bale put Madrid back in front.

The Welsh star, who has been linked with a move away from Santiago Bernabeu, scored a sensational overhead kick that will be played through the ages and then followed it up with a second that was, again, the fault of the ‘keeper.

Bale unleashed an effort from distance that Karius allowed to slip through his hands, sealing the win for Los Blancos.

Despite the goal for Benzema the striker again misses out on featuring for France and has not appeared since 2015 against Armenia following a high profile blackmail case involving fellow teammate Mathieu Valbuena.