Christian Benteke Liolo — Player Story
Football is the most beautiful part of heaven. More real in a sense of speaking, certainly.
When well done, it nudges even the most casual observers to fold inwards to experience such delicate ecstasy. A particular form of bliss. A cheat code, if I may.
Imagine being the player. Then, imagine being born with the necessary skill and sufficient circumstance to hone the elite skill-sets requisite to play in any of the Europe’s top leagues. What joy!
But one doesn’t play football in vacuum. The political and economic situation surrounding a player’s early life, significantly affects the player’s ability to hit his/her theoretical maximum.
Imagine now, being born as a player who is equipped enough to bring weekly jubilation to millions of households, but unfortunately thrust into extreme political strife and violence at a ripe young age. It is shuddering to, even if hypothetically, zone into that.
But you can’t throw a rug on beauty and make it disappear. It is slippery. It is relentless.
Let’s take you to Kinshasa, home to the second largest river in the world — a bloodline for the world’s second richest concentration of living species. It is the only river that crosses the equator twice and it is twice as deep as a football pitch is long.
The locals call it “nzadi o nzere” — “river swallowing rivers”. The Portuguese christened it to, the more popular name, “Zaire”. Yes, the very Zaire from your childhood geography textbooks.
Kinshasa, the capital of what was once Zaire, and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, is interestingly home to some incredible footballing talent. The most fortunate of them fled a notorious dictatorial regime spanning 3 decades from 1965. A great many couldn’t escape it.
Jose Bosingwa [Portugal, Chelsea, QPR]; Steve Mandanda [France, Crystal Palace];Kazenga Lua Lua [Brighton]; Youssouf Mulumbu [Norwich] are some of the notable footballers who hail from Kinshasa. Lest we forget, the legendary Claude Makelele[France, Chelsea, Real Madrid] — the midfielder to drown all midfielders.
Guess who else is from Kinshasa? — Christian Benteke [Belgium, Villa, Liverpool, Palace].
Christian Benteke Liolo started his footballing career with the Belgian clubs of Standard Liege and Genk. His stint at Belgium was fairly unremarkable till EPL came calling.
On 15 September 2012, he made his EPL debut for Aston Villa against Swansea — where he produced a wonderful bit of flair to beat CB Ashley Williams and keeper Vorm to score through a splendid flick and volley. He then scored a brace at Anfield to complete Villa’s 3–1 humiliation of Liverpool.
Such was Benteke’s landing impact that Andre Villas-Boas, then-manager of Tottenham, wanted to buy him during Christmas — just 6 months after he had joined Paul Lambert’s Aston Villa.
However, as time would have it — he ended up at Liverpool after three spectacular seasons at Villa — where in his debut season he came second only to the phenomenal Gareth Bale for the Young Player of the Year award. Bale, meanwhile also won the Player of the Year award that year, following a spectacular season of his own accord.
Liverpool was a strange episode for Benteke — he was often found on the bench. Frustrated with the lack of playing time under manager Jurgen Klopp — on 20 August 2016, Liverpool’s second most expensive transfer of all time [£32.5 million] departed from Anfield, after scoring just 10 goals in 42 appearances, for Crystal Palace.
He hit the ground running at Palace where on his birthday — 3rd December — he scored two goals to end Crystal Palace’s run of six successive defeats as Palace trumped Puel’s Southampton 3–0. He marked his return to Anfield in style, scoring both the goals in Palace’s 2–1 victory over Liverpool on 23rd April 2017.
Remarkably, Benteke scored more goals at Anfield as an away player than when he donned the majestic Red jersey as Liverpool’s home player.
What went wrong at Liverpool? A brief look at the below statistics show that Benteke had as good a season as any other — if you look at the per-90 minute metrics instead of the per-game metrics.
For a fully loaded statistical analysis of Benteke’s playing style — and to check how he compares with top strikers like Didier Drogba, Jermaine Defoe, Romelu Lukaku etc — stay tuned for the next article
We would love to know who else is worthy of a comparison with the red-hot Belgian Striker. Demba Ba? Tevez? Let us know in the comments section.
