Why oft-criticised Benzema remains a strong option for Real Madrid

Who should start up front for Real Madrid in the Champions League final? On the surface, this looks like an easy question to answer. Zinedine Zidane has preferred a two-man attack this season, and Cristiano Ronaldo's inclusion is a certainty. To partner him, the manager can choose either Gareth Bale, who scored five times in his final four games of the La Liga campaign, or a player who barely reached that figure in 32 appearances.

And yet, the word is Ronaldo would prefer the latter option. A report in Don Balon last week claimed he already asked Zidane to put Karim Benzema alongside him.

The details of private conversations between a player and his boss can't easily be verified. At the very least, we can say the claim is plausible. Ronaldo's fondness for his French teammate is hardly a secret. Just this past February, he refused to take a penalty kick that would have completed a hat-trick against Alaves, insisting Benzema should have the chance to get his name on the scoresheet instead.

That was a rare role reversal. More often, it's Benzema who makes personal sacrifices so Ronaldo can shine.

No player has provided more assists to the Portuguese forward this season, but even that's an incomplete measure. The positions Benzema takes up, the runs he makes, and the timing of them are often designed to clear space for his partner to work.

There's a passage in the autobiography of Jerzy Dudek - who played for both Madrid and its Champions League final opponent, Liverpool - where he reflects on Ronaldo's unyielding personal ambition. "I think," writes the goalkeeper, "he sees teammates as assistants who are working towards his greatness."

Dudek goes on to compare Ronaldo to another Madrid great, Raul, who could be furious at the end of a 3-0 win just because he hadn't scored. Look through the biographies of many successful attackers and you'll find this to be a common trope. It's hardly surprising certain personalities gravitate towards the most glamorous positions on the pitch.

Yet Benzema seems to go against the grain.

His goals were what first caught the attention of Florentino Perez. The Madrid president flew out personally to launch the charm offensive after Benzema struck 54 times in two seasons at Lyon.

Early seasons in Madrid were similarly prolific for Benzema. He piled up 26 goals in 2010-11 and 32 a year later. It's only over the past two seasons that his statistics have started to look less impressive. A drop-off in measurable production has coincided with Ronaldo transitioning from an all-action winger to a less explosive yet still relentlessly effective centre-forward.

If Benzema feels upset or marginalised by this change, he does a good job of hiding it.

"I play football to always help my teammates," he told Vanity Fair last month, "and to win everything."

Whatever his detractors may say - and there are plenty of them in Madrid, where he has been jeered by his own team's fans at times this season - Benzema has certainly delivered on that last point.

He has started in the three Champions League finals Madrid played in over the last four years. He never scored in any of them, and has curiously always been substituted at almost the exact same moment, coming off in the 79th minute in 2014, then the 77th in both 2016 and 2017. Yet he has always wound up with his hands on the big-eared trophy by the end of the night.

Before Madrid played Bayern Munich in this year's semi-final, the retired German international Stefan Effenberg expressed bewilderment at all the hostility.

"Why is Benzema criticised so much in Spain?" he asked a journalist from the newspaper Diario AS. "He plays next to Cristiano and does not stop working for him. Criticising him for a lack of goals when he has Cristiano next to him does not seem very logical to me.

"Look at (Bayern forward Thomas) Muller. He used to score 20 goals per season, now he gets less. The reason? Because he works for (Robert) Lewandowski, who scores thanks to Muller."

Benzema is an integral figure for Madrid. Now, as Zidane contemplates his starting XI for Saturday’s game, the manager faces a simple choice between one player in scintillating form and another who, despite more modest production, seems to suit the five-time Ballon d'Or winner alongside him the most.

Perhaps there's a third option: Reviving the old BBC of Bale, Benzema, and Cristiano - though that seems unlikely. The trio have not been on the pitch together at any point on Madrid's path to this final in Kiev.

So much for easy answers. As Madrid prepares to duke it out with a Liverpool team that scored 40 goals in 12 Champions League games, the question of who starts up front is not one Zidane can take lightly.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)