1.Virgil Van Dijk vs Karim Benzema
Virgil van Dijk made the £75m switch to Liverpool in January to fulfil their European ambitions and stop best attackers in the world. Liverpool booked their place in the Kiev decider with a 7-6 win on aggregate over Roma after a dramatic two-legged semi-final. Come 26th May, Van Dijk will have a plenty to pull out from his defensive repertoire to contain Bale-Benzema-Cristiano attacking combination. Benzema being the conventional centre-forward is expect to lurk inside the box to get into the scoring pockets. Strikers like Benzema are a dying breed, the typical marksman striving on a defensive error looking to capitalize positional mistakes from Centre backs or looking to slip-in the simple tap-ins.
Van Dijk needs to on top of his game pairing with Lovren to calm the defence down, eliminate any mistake around the box. With Real Madrid looking to attack en masse, and really pile the pressure on.VanDijk needs to dictate terms and lead the defensive shape to keep it compact and avoid any scrappy mistake for a poacher like Benzema to nip-in a goal.