“Age is just a number,” says Karim Benzema after winning the Ballon d’or at 34. Benzema became the oldest winner since the first recipient in 1956, Stanley Matthews. “People play until their later years now and I still have this burning desire. It is this drive that has kept me going and never allowed me to let up,” said Benzema, who won the men’s Ballon d’Or for the first time. Benzema is the first French player to win the trophy since Zinedine Zidane