Team Spotlight
The Next Generation — Under-21 Players Who Will Define the Late 2020s
Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, and Erling Haaland are already established. Who comes next? Twelve under-21 players who will define football from 2027 onward.
Karim Benzema spent 14 years at Real Madrid as Ronaldo''s sidekick. Then Ronaldo left, and Benzema won the Ballon d''Or at 34. Here''s how.
Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, and Erling Haaland are already established. Who comes next? Twelve under-21 players who will define football from 2027 onward.
Cole Palmer left Manchester City for Chelsea and immediately became their best player. Penalty record, late-game cool, England''s emerging star.
Bukayo Saka has been Arsenal''s most consistent attacker for three seasons. England''s 2026 World Cup hopes depend on him being fit.
Complete World Cup 2026 schedule with kickoff times auto-adjusted to your timezone. All 48 nations, 12 groups, knockout bracket, plus how to subscribe via Google / Apple / Outlook calendar.
Japan's road to World Cup 2026: full Group F schedule (Netherlands, Tunisia, Sweden), key players to watch, and the Samurai Blue's pursuit of a first quarterfinal.
Region-by-region World Cup 2026 broadcast guide: Fox + Telemundo (US), BBC + ITV (UK), TSN (Canada), Optus + SBS (Australia), and more. VPN options for fans abroad.
年一括 30,000 円。月割換算で実質 2,500 円。
DMM プレミアム同梱で月 3,480 円。DMM のアニメ・映画も見放題に。
ドコモ料金プラン契約者は月 6 円で DAZN 見放題。
au 料金プラン契約者は 0 円で DAZN 見放題。
現地観戦で USA / メキシコ / カナダに行った日本人向け。日本サーバー経由で DAZN・NHK 配信を視聴可能。
Subscribe to a live World Cup 2026 calendar feed that auto-updates when fixtures shift. Step-by-step setup for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook.
See also: KOC Karim Benzema player profile.
Most superstars peak at 27. Karim Benzema's career was the opposite: 14 years at Real Madrid in someone else's shadow, then four seasons of personal dominance, then a Ballon d'Or at 34. A late bloom of historic scale.
Before: Benzema sacrificed for Cristiano Ronaldo. Decoy runs, post-up holdups, late-into-box assists. Many seasons under 20 goals as a centre-forward — which most fans read as underperformance.
After Ronaldo left: 30, 27, 27, 44 goals in four straight seasons. Same player, different role. The actual difference was that Benzema became the focal striker — and immediately proved he could be one at the highest level.
Three traits that don't show up in highlights:
The greatest individual CL knockout campaign in modern history. 10 goals in 12 games. Hat-trick at PSG in the second leg. Hat-trick at Chelsea. The winning goal vs Manchester City. The opening goal in the final.
Real Madrid's 15th European Cup was largely a Benzema solo project.
Karim Mostafa Benzema was born on 19 December 1987 in Lyon, France, into a family of Algerian Kabyle heritage. He joined Olympique Lyonnais's academy at age eight and made his Ligue 1 debut on 15 January 2005. Across four senior Lyon seasons he won three Ligue 1 titles and was named Ligue 1 Player of the Year for 2007-08.
Real Madrid signed him in July 2009 for around €35M. He became a cornerstone of the club's golden era — first as part of the legendary "BBC" front three with Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, and later as Madrid's main centre-forward after Ronaldo's 2018 departure. Across 14 seasons he made 648 appearances, scored 354 goals and won five UEFA Champions League titles (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2022) plus four La Liga titles. In 2022 he won the Ballon d'Or, the UEFA Men's Player of the Year, and was top scorer of the 2021-22 Champions League.
In June 2023 he joined Saudi Pro League side Al-Ittihad, captaining them to a 2024-25 league + cup double with 21 league goals. In January 2026 he transferred to Al-Hilal and scored a hat-trick on debut.
→ See the full KOC player profile for stats and fixtures.