Benzema praises Sergio Conceicao
Karim Benzema, now 37 and in his third season at Al Ittihad, has offered one of his most detailed reflections yet on what his move to Saudi Arabia has meant for him professionally, insisting that his trajectory since leaving Europe has been one of steady improvement rather than decline.
Speaking to L’Equipe, the former Real Madrid icon framed his transfer not as a late-career detour, but as participation in what he calls a broader national football project, one he believes has evolved quickly and will continue to accelerate. His comments also carried a clear message: the Saudi league is not Europe, but it is closer than many people assume, and it is becoming harder to dismiss on autopilot.
Benzema began by describing his overall assessment of the move as very positive, while acknowledging that the adaptation period was more demanding than he initially expected. For him, the early months were not simply a new club environment. They represented a radical shift in football culture, daily rhythms, expectations, and mentality. He described it as discovering another football and another mentality, and he compared the process to starting from zero again, despite arriving with the full weight of his European experience and achievements. That is a revealing admission from a player who won everything at club level, because it highlights that the challenge was not technical ability, but context, adjustment, and rebuilding the internal reference points that elite athletes rely on.
He was also unusually candid about his first season, admitting that his level was average, even very average, in his own words. That kind of blunt self-assessment is rare from a player of his stature, and it underlines how seriously he takes performance standards. Benzema’s argument is that he did not interpret that first season as a warning sign, but as a baseline from which he had to progress. He stressed that the mentality that drove him in Europe, the need to keep improving, to keep searching for something extra, followed him to Saudi Arabia. In his framing, motivation is not dependent on prestige. It is a habit. And it is that habit, he said, that allowed him to turn the corner.
When he speaks about his second season, the tone changes completely. Benzema described it as very, very good, saying he recovered good sensations and returned to the kind of feeling that defines his best football: sharpness, rhythm, confidence, and connection with teammates. He linked that improvement not only to his own adaptation but also to the environment around him: a stronger collective, very good players, goals, and titles. Implicitly, he is pointing to something important about star signings in emerging leagues. Performance is not guaranteed simply because a player arrives with a famous name. It is influenced by the surrounding level, the team structure, and the intensity of the competitive environment. Benzema suggests that as those conditions improved, his own output and comfort improved with them.
From there, he widened the conversation beyond himself. Benzema made it clear that he does not see his role at Al Ittihad as being limited to scoring goals and winning matches, even though that remains central. He insisted that part of his job is developmental: helping to build the football culture, raising standards, and influencing young Saudi players. His point was not that he is there to give speeches, but that he can show, through daily behaviors and professionalism, what top-level football looks like in practice. He spoke about demonstrating what is done in Europe, and about using his experience to point younger players toward the right path. The underlying idea is that improvement in a league is not only about infrastructure and investment. It is also about habits, training culture, and the professional expectations that elite players normalize.
One of Benzema’s strongest moments came when he pushed back against the common perception that playing in Saudi Arabia is automatically easy. He was direct: you cannot think it is easy here. He accepted that it is not at Europe’s level, but he repeatedly emphasized that it is not far off, and that the gap is closing faster than many people acknowledge. He argued that, in only three years, he has already seen significant evolution in the league, describing it as more physical, faster, and on a continued upward trajectory. That is not a casual claim. Physicality and speed are often the first indicators of rising competitive standards because they reflect training intensity, athletic development, and tactical adaptation across the league rather than in a few isolated teams.
To reinforce his point, he referenced evidence from the Club World Cup, highlighting that Al Hilal faced Real Madrid and eliminated Manchester City. His message was not that Saudi clubs are now superior to Europe’s elite, but that the automatic assumption of a one-sided mismatch is outdated. In other words, if observers still view Saudi football as an exhibition level, they are likely to be surprised, because the competitive ceiling has moved.
Benzema then brought the conversation back to his day-to-day reality at Al Ittihad and, in particular, to the impact of having a European coach like Sergio Conceicao. He described the team’s current level in a way that was both realistic and assertive: not at Europe’s level, but not far off. He used a simple illustration to make the point. A European team facing a strong Saudi team will not win 5-0. That is a fantasy, he said, and he added a line that captures his tone: this is not PlayStation. In other words, real football does not follow the lazy script that people repeat online. But Benzema also added an important caveat: you cannot move faster than the music. The league is improving, but there are still differences, and one of the most meaningful differences is training intensity. In his view, the level and training do not yet match Europe’s intensity, but the process is moving in that direction.
This is where Conceicao’s influence comes into Benzema’s comments in a practical way. He explained that, with a European coach, Al Ittihad are doing a lot more physical work, and that these are things they were not doing before. That is significant because it aligns with what many European managers bring when they arrive in leagues that are investing rapidly. They often push for increased intensity, higher training standards, and stricter tactical discipline, because that is how you raise the weekly competitive baseline. Benzema’s praise here is less about motivation or charisma and more about methods and structure, suggesting that Conceicao’s presence is part of the broader professionalization Benzema believes is underway.
The interview also offered insight into Benzema’s current mindset regarding his career timeline. With his contract set to expire at the end of the season and six months remaining, he avoided committing publicly on whether he will renew or move elsewhere. Instead, he emphasized focus and process. He said he concentrates on what he is doing now, whether that is his final months under contract or a continuation if he renews. He also made it clear that he is not currently framing his next step around a specific club, and that other people are better placed to speak about negotiations.
What stood out most in his closing remarks was how clearly he has defined his personal horizon. Benzema said that in his head he is programmed for two years. He repeated that idea as a professional commitment rather than a vague ambition: two years to play football, two years to give his maximum, two years to fight. He described it as work, and he stressed that on the pitch he gives everything. Perhaps his most revealing line was that, in football terms, he feels like he is 20 in his head. Not physically, but mentally. The sense is that he believes the key variable for longevity at elite level is mental readiness: motivation, discipline, and the willingness to endure the grind of training and competition.
Taken together, Benzema’s comments read as a defence of the seriousness of his Saudi chapter and a quiet endorsement of the direction of Saudi football. He does not claim the league is already Europe. He does not pretend the gap has disappeared. But he argues, from inside the experience, that the league is evolving quickly in pace, physicality, and professionalism, and that coaches like Sergio Conceicao are accelerating that shift through training demands and methods. For Benzema, the move is not merely about finishing a career in comfort. It is about competing, helping build something, and proving that the environment can support high-level football, while he continues to chase the standards that defined his European peak.
