France Euro 2020 squad: Potential for brilliance or implosion as Karim Benzema set for shock recall

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Karim Benzema hasn’t played for France since 2015, but that exclusion has absolutely nothing to do with his footballing ability.

He’s continued to show at Real Madrid that he’s one of the best all-round strikers in the world, but there’s a big problem when it comes to France because of an ongoing court case.

It involved his former teammate Matthieu Valbuena as he was blackmailed by a gang over a sex tape which featured him, and Benzema was caught up in this due to the involvement of a childhood friend and he then got personally involved in trying to sort it out.

Understandably that caused issues with the national team and it looked like he was gone for good, so his potential recall provides the potential for something huge this summer.

If there are factions in the dressing room then we could see a 2010 World Cup style revolt where players are sent home and they don’t perform at all, or Benzema could come up with a redemption story for the ages if he fires them to glory.

There are additional issues here such as the active court case and he may not be popular with Olivier Giroud due to previous comments where he was compared to a go-kart, so there are so many things that could happen here.

For footballing reasons it’s absolutely the right call as he should give them added firepower, but this also has the potential to massively backfire.

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