Karim Benzema Becomes Top Penalty Taker In Europe... Only To Lose Title In Same Game

Karim Benzema scored two penalties to help Real Madrid bounce back from their Clasico thrashing with a 2-1 win at Celta Vigo.

Benzema's double on Saturday means that he has now scored 94 La Liga goals since the start of the 2017/18 season.

Almost a fifth of those goals have been penalties, with Benzema scoring for the spot 18 times in the league the last five seasons.

Benzema's first penalty against Celta came on 19 minutes after Nolito had fouled Eder Militao.

By converting that penalty - sending keeper Matias Dituro the wrong way in the process - Benzema became statistically the most deadly penalty taker in Europe's top five leagues over the past five seasons.

Data compiled by Opta showed that of all the players who had scored at least 12 spot-kicks in either the Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga in the last five seasons, none had a conversion rate as high as Benzema's.

But Benzema's conversion rate did not stay at 94.4% for long.

Within just 45 minutes, Benzema took another penalty. This one was saved by Dituro, dropping Benzema down to 89.47%.

But that did not dissuade the Frenchman from stepping up again moments later, after Real were awarded their third spot-kick of the day.

Benzema made amends for his miss and, with it, took his conversion rate over the past five seasons up to a round 90%.

That left PSG defender Sergio Ramos with the title of Europe's top penalty taker, narrowly ahead of Tottenham's Harry Kane, Saint-Etienne's Wahbi Khazri and Andrej Kramaric of Hoffenheim in joint second.

Karim Benzema has scored from 18 of his 20 La Liga penalties in the last five seasons

IMAGO/Zuma wire/Oscar J. Barroso