World Cup 2018: 5 top footballers snubbed for the Mundial

#2 Karim Benzema (France)

Karim Benzema hasn't played for France since October 2015.

The saga involving Karim Benzema and French Manager Didier Deschamps is painfully old, and the tendency of the latter to continue this internal feud has made the selection snub Benzema regularly receives a common practice.

Going into retrospect, it all began when the Real Madrid striker was implicated in French teammate Mathieu Valbuena's sex-tape blackmail case, in which he was accused of assisting the blackmailers to extract a ransom from his teammate.

Ever since this news surfaced, Deschamps has not picked either Benzema or Valbuena to avoid compromising his squad's integrity and morale, which were severely damaged after the emergence of Benzema's role in the Valbuena case.

Judging by their squad role and the stage of their respective careers, clearly it is Benzema who suffers a greater loss than Valbuena from not representing France. He was not selected for Euro 2016 hosted in his home country, was not a part of France's World Cup qualifying matches and friendlies in the last few years, and lately was snubbed for France's 2018 World Cup squad.

The harsh manner of the French-Algerian striker's ostracism from the national squad has also generated accusations of Deschamps giving him the racial treatment.

In the meantime, Benzema has enjoyed club-level success winning an unprecedented third UEFA Champions League on the bounce with Real Madrid, having scored the opener against Liverpool in Kiev last week.

Following this triumph, former French international and Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribéry took a dig at Deschamps for snubbing Benzema yet again.

No matter how many trophies he might win at his club, it seems highly unlikely that Karim Benzema would don the colours of Les Bleus again as long as Didier Deschamps is there at the helm, a belief that he himself has backed.