Karim Benzema has spent over a decade playing alongside football’s biggest names. These days he’s in Saudi Arabia with Al Ittihad, still making superstar money, somewhere between leading man and veteran presence.

Spanish daily AS asked him to name his “team of legends” recently. His answer—an XI with seventeen Ballon d’Or trophies squeezed onto one pitch—leaves himself on the bench. Real Madrid fans will recognize the spine immediately. So will Barcelona supporters who lived through the Messi–Ronaldo Clasico years, and anyone who grew up watching late-night highlights of Ronaldo Nazário and Ronaldinho.

The lineup runs 4-3-3: Manuel Neuer in goal, a back four of Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, and Dani Alves, a midfield three of Paul Pogba, Ronaldinho, and Zinedine Zidane, and a front line of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Ronaldo Nazário. On the bench: Benzema himself, plus Luka Modrić and Andrés Iniesta.

This isn’t the first time Benzema’s done this. Back in 2023, during his first months in Saudi Arabia, he built a different dream XI for his club’s media channels. That version left out Messi and Cristiano, included Claude Makélélé, and found room for Benzema up front next to Ronaldo Nazário. Two years later, this new list feels less about him and more reflective.

The back line: Bernabéu under the lights

Start with the back five and you’re basically looking at the Santiago Bernabéu on a Champions League night. Neuer is the outsider—the sweeper-keeper Benzema couldn’t beat in the 2014 World Cup semi-final, the familiar obstacle from Madrid’s Champions League battles with Bayern. In front of him sit three former Madrid teammates and one Clásico rival.

Marcelo and Ramos were by Benzema’s side for most of his time in Spain. The Brazilian left-back formed one corner of that famous triangle with Benzema and Cristiano. Pepe brings the edge and dark arts from the Mourinho years. Alves is the intruder, but he makes sense. When Benzema pictures the perfect attacking right-back, he’s thinking of the Brazilian bombing forward in a Barcelona shirt, not some safety-first defender.

Midfield: idols, mentors, and a French brain

Midfield is where this gets personal. At the base sits Pogba. Not Makélélé, not N’Golo Kanté, not Sergio Busquets. “Pogba at the base, he’s the brains. He can do it all,” Benzema said. He’s talking about the France version of Pogba—the Nations League conductor who could control rhythm, spray diagonals, and still glide past defenders. It’s also a nod to their shared history with the national team, where Benzema returned from exile and found Pogba already central to a World Cup-winning squad.

Ahead of him: Zidane and Ronaldinho. Two players who shaped how Benzema thinks about football. Zidane is more than a childhood idol. He’s the coach who trusted Benzema to become Madrid’s leading man after Cristiano left, the one who guided him through three straight Champions League titles as manager. Ronaldinho is closer to a fantasy—the player Benzema has said he dreamed of playing with, now dropped into his imaginary midfield to connect everything and bring pure magic.

Attack: fifteen Ballon d’Or up front

The front three is the clearest statement. Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ronaldo Nazário together. It’s also an admission that time has moved on. In that earlier Saudi-era XI, he put himself next to R9. This time, he steps aside and hands the shirts to his childhood hero and the two players whose rivalry defined his career.

Messi represents the years when Madrid, under Benzema, chased a Barcelona team that felt unbeatable. Cristiano is the partner he learned to play for, then learned to play without—nine seasons together in white before Benzema carried the attack alone. Ronaldo Nazário is the prototype, the number nine Benzema watched as a kid and then followed to the same club, just years too late to share a pitch. Put them together and you get less a tactical plan, more a mural of everything he considers great about scoring goals.

A timeline in one team sheet

If this XI has a weakness, it’s central midfield. No Modrić or Toni Kroos. No classic holding midfielder like Makélélé or Busquets. But that fits Benzema’s logic—this team isn’t built to win a Champions League final. It’s built around the players who shaped his imagination. Pogba is there because of their bond with France and the way Benzema sees his passing range. Zidane is both an icon and a mentor. Ronaldinho is the memory of late-night matches and falling in love with football’s joyful side.

Zoom out and the lineup doubles as a career timeline. Lyon-era Benzema idolized R9 and Ronaldinho. Prime Madrid Benzema shared a dressing room with Ramos, Marcelo, and Pepe, shared a forward line with Cristiano, and spent years chasing (sometimes beating) Messi’s Barcelona. Saudi-era Benzema is now part of the wave pulling football’s center of gravity toward the Gulf.

That’s what makes this dream XI interesting. It’s not a definitive list of the greatest players ever. It’s one man’s map of the sport as he lived it—from street pitches in Lyon to Champions League nights in Madrid to big contracts in Jeddah. The keeper who denied him, the defenders who protected him, the midfielders who made the game beautiful, and the forwards whose goals set the standard he spent a career chasing.

For Benzema, now a headline attraction in Saudi Arabia and a name that shows up as often in business stories as match reports, that feels right. His dream XI doesn’t need to be perfect. It only needs to tell the story of how he saw football—Zidane’s first touch, Ronaldinho’s smile, Pogba’s passing, and that front three with fifteen Ballons d’Or between them.