Ballon d'Or: Frenchman Karim Benzema (Real Madrid CF) wins the 2022 edition of the trophy

Karim Benzema (FRA, Real Madrid CF) has been awarded the Ballon d'Or 2022 at the ceremony held at the Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris, FRA) for the 66^th edition of the trophy created by the French magazine France Football (and which now covers the last season instead of the calendar year), on 17/10/2022.

Winner of the Champions League and the LaLiga Santander with Real Madrid CF and of the Nations League with the French national team in 2021-22, the forward trained at Olympique Lyonnais (Ligue 1 Uber Eats) has won the trophy for the best player of the season for the first time. This is the 12^th Ballon d'Or awarded to a Real Madrid player (out of a total of eight Real Madrid players awarded).

Karim Benzema is the fifth Frenchman to win the award after Raymond Kopa (1958), Michel Platini (1983, 1984 and 1985), Jean-Pierre Papin (1991) and Zinédine Zidane (1998). At 34, he is also the oldest player to win the award since Stanley Matthews, the first winner in 1956.

"I'm very happy, very moved, a childhood dream has come true. I should not only talk about the easy moments, there were also…