The SoccerNation Report- 7/2/09 | SoccerNation's Blog

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls of all ages. Hello and welcome back to The SoccerNation Report brought to you in some way by Real Madrid because they seem to pull money out of thin air. The reason for so many days of non-soccer related news is the Confederations Cup. Not much was going on during the Confed. Cup, so I took the libery of being a fan. Today I'll catch you up on some of the transfers that matter and also give you some more news from today.

Benzema to Madrid- The 21 year-old French striker has moved to Real Madrid and the new "galactico" era has sweetened ever more. The striker could be worth 41 million euros to Lyon, a French giant, if Benzema performs well. The French striker will sign a six-year contract with the Spanish giants. That really won't come to mean anything because players move whenever they want anyway. But this has to be considered a great move for Real Madrid. Despite paying a lot for the services of Benzema, he is a young star that will score tons of goals if given the opportunity. Last year Benzema pushed Barcelona to the brink and nearly advanced. He also scored 23 goals- a goal every other game. Benzema is a talent that will do Madrid good, but they can NOT neglect Benzema. If Benzema is neglected, I feel that a talent might be wasted. Madrid have a lot of footballers that can score goals, but Benzema has to be a starter from day one for this to work out. Now on to Lyon. Lyon comes out good from this, actually. Last season in Ligue 1, they showed some inferiority in finishing in 3rd place. They have a few holes to fill- and now they can do just that. For his price, Lyon can re-load. They need a replacement for Juninho and Benzema (which they can get fairly cheap if they want to) and then they can strengthen up that defence which always needs help. If Lyon play their cards right, they can win Ligue 1 back and also make a nice little run in the Champions League.