{"id":767744,"date":"2026-09-11T22:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767744\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T22:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:56:14","slug":"joao-pedro-chelsea-boss-xabi-alonso-says-striker-like-karim-benzema-and-as-good-as-erling-haaland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767744\/","title":{"rendered":"Joao Pedro: Chelsea boss Xabi Alonso says striker like Karim Benzema and as good as Erling Haaland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike Haaland, who is a specialist goalscorer, Joao Pedro has played as a midfielder, number 10 and winger during his career and possesses a more rounded skillset.<\/p>\n

Alonso, who made 195 appearances alongside former Ballon d’Or winner Benzema at Real Madrid, said there were also similarities between the Frenchman and Joao Pedro.<\/p>\n

“In many things he reminds me of Benzema, because he is good in the box, he is good out of the box, he is good coming to his left side, he is good with the head, he is very complete, he is intelligent,” added the Spaniard.<\/p>\n

“So yes, he is still young, still things to develop, but many, many absolutely outstanding qualities that he has.”<\/p>\n

Benzema, now 38 and a free agent, has scored 523 goals in 994 appearances for France, Lyon, Real Madrid and Saudi Arabian sides Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Joao Pedro was a surprise omission from Brazil’s squad for the World Cup this summer, but has since been recalled for September’s international fixtures against New Zealand and India.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the omission by Brazil manager Carlo Ancelotti, who coached Alonso at Real Madrid, had provided added motivation this season, the Chelsea<\/a> boss said: “He had enough motivation.<\/p>\n

“He already had enough within him, so I didn’t need to go there. It was painful for him, but that is in the past. We are now focused on what he is doing well and what he can do better.<\/p>\n

“He has been outstanding. Not just in football terms, but in his personality, his maturity and his desire. He has a very clear goal this season, which is to have a great campaign and score a lot of goals.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlike Haaland, who is a specialist goalscorer, Joao Pedro has played as a midfielder, number 10 and winger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-767744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}