Speaking ahead of Real Madrid's Club World Cup opener against Club America, Zinedine Zidane lavished praise on Cristiano Ronaldo: "It's no exaggeration to say that he's the best player in the history of Real Madrid," the Frenchman stated with a touch of modesty.
Zidane's assertion is open to debate, of course, but there is little doubt that Ronaldo's influence at Real Madrid since his arrival in 2009 has been nothing short of incredible.
The argument as to who is the best player in Real's history, or in the game at large, will never reach a conclusion to satisfy all parties, but that is half the reason football remains the world's most popular sport. Other games, through an eye-watering collation of statistics, can go some way to providing a definitive answer, but the great debate in football will endure until the earth smashes into the sun.
In the meantime, it is also no exaggeration to say that over the past decade, Sergio Ramos has represented the side's greatest value for money on the pitch.
Ramos cost Real Madrid €27 million when he signed from Sevilla as a 19-year-old in the summer of 2005, a mere drop in the ocean of the Bernabeu's transfer outlay since the turn of the century. Since then, he has made 492 appearances in official competition and has scored 63 goals and provided 35 assists, a staggering number for a modern-day central defender.
The 2005-06 season was a period of transfer frugality in La Liga. Barcelona spent nothing and Atletico's biggest outlay was on Martin Petrov (€10m from Wolfsburg), while Valencia picked up a bargain in €12m David Villa from Zaragoza and Sevilla reinvested just €6.5m of their Ramos money to bring in Frederic Kanoute from Spurs.
Quite how Depor managed to squeeze up to €20m out of Newcastle for Albert Luque in such a market remains a mystery but Ramos was a bargain, even if he was the most expensive transfer of the summer in La Liga and the priciest Spanish teenager in history at that point.
Ramos scored his first goal for Madrid against Celta on Dec. 6, 2005. It was a header of course, delivered from a Raul Bravo free kick. The now-club captain has made quite a career of popping up with important goals and plenty come from crosses into the box where he defies his relatively unimposing 6-foot stature to out-leap defenders. This season alone, Ramos has saved the day against Villarreal (1-1), Barcelona (1-1) and Deportivo (3-2) by using his head, the latter two goals both coming in stoppage time.
The 92nd-minute header in Lisbon sent his side on their way to the Decima in 2013-14, the opener in the second leg of the semifinal against Bayern the same year, to which he added a second four minutes later, put the tie beyond the Bundesliga giants; a 92nd-minute header in the 2016 UEFA Super Cup final at 2-1 down against Sevilla is also on his list. Simply put, Ramos is king of the timely intervention.
The last time Real participated in the Club World Cup in Morocco in 2014, Ramos was named player of the tournament after opening the scoring against Cruz Azul in the semifinals and again against San Lorenzo in the final.
Zidane will not be able to call on his captain for Real's opening match against Club America on Thursday, but Ramos should be available for the final if the European representatives get past the CONCACAF Champions League winners.
A hypothetical final against surprise package Kashima Antlers will present Real with a more testing game than pre-tournament forecasts predicted. The J-League champions proved against Atletico Nacional that they are not merely making up the numbers in a display of defensive organization and knock-out punch on the counter-attack that caught the Copa Libertadores winners completely off-guard.
Breaking down a side motivated to win the competition on home soil in front of a partisan crowd may require some individual heroics.
When Ronaldo renewed his contract recently, Florentino Perez said that the Portuguese "gives us more than we pay him."
That is difficult to dispute, even in the age of €300,000 a week contracts and €100m transfers.
What is utterly irrefutable is that the best money Perez has spent, euro for euro, during his two tenures in the Bernabeu boardroom was on Ramos, a player who would go on to become one of the most influential Real Madrid players in history. "He is a symbol of Madridismo," said El Presi, who holds a special affection for the only Spaniard signed during his first mandate, when Ramos renewed his contract after a brief flirtation with Manchester United last year.
Ramos may well succeed Perez in the big chair one day. In the immediate future, he will be targeting the perfect end to a stellar year personally and collectively. A 92nd-minute winner to land the Club World Cup perhaps?
Both America and Kashima will have some say in the matter, but as Ramos has proved time and again, match-winners at Real are often more back than front.