The Anfield Colossus

Liverpool’s Dutch defender has a strong case to be seen as the world’s best player in 2019

- Nick Bidwell

An absolute colossus in more ways than one, Liverpool and Holland center-back Virgil Van Dijk is a prima facie case of a footballing thoroughbred. The most expensive defender on the planet after swopping Southampton for Anfield in a £75million deal in January 2018; a freshly minted Champions League winner; voted the best player in England last season by fellow professionals, and a decent bet to be the next world player of the year.

In Jurgen Klopp’s heavy-metal supergroup, the 28-year-old son of a Surinamese mother and Dutch father cuts the figure of the charismatic lead singer. He controls, marshals, initiates and sets the emotional tone. So how peculiar that in his formative years he mainly struggled for recognition; either rejected, ignored or misunderstood.

Never mind fronting a band, the best he could hope for back in those days was to be a backing vocalist or roadie.

A major disappointment for the adolescent Van Dijk was never having the opportunity to play in the schoolboy ranks of NAC, the number one club in his hometown of Breda in the south of Holland. NAC, regular members of the Dutch top flight, were the team the youngster supported and he dreamt morning, noon and night of one day wearing their yellow-and-black colors.

Initially, his wish looked eminently achievable. Only five years old when he joined the WDS’19 club – Breda’s oldest amateur outfit and whose HQ was conveniently located in his home district of Haagse Beemden – he showed a great deal of promise as a fledgling defender.

“He was not extremely big for his age, but in his positional play he was the best on the pitch,” recalled former WDS team-mate and goalkeeper Jordy Brugel in an interview with the Voetbal Primeur website. “In one season I only let in one goal – and that was because I had him in front of me.