Why Virgil van Dijk could be the World Cup’s most valuable player | OneFootball

When Virgil van Dijk set a world record, he had never played in a World Cup. Indeed, he would not for almost another five years. Now, a defender who was once the world’s best heads for the global stage, for presumably the last time, is still undefeated in World Cups.

In a way, anyway. The Netherlands exited the 2022 tournament undefeated over 90 or 120 minutes, but was beaten on penalties by Argentina in the last eight. Van Dijk’s last touch of the competition was the spot kick he saw saved by Emi Martinez. Perhaps it was a sign of his stature that the men selected to take the first penalty for their respective countries were him and Lionel Messi.

Such can be the responsibility given to him. Now, even when there may be evidence that his considerable powers are waning, it can seem all the greater. In the great arc of Dutch football, missed penalties are a recurring theme. There can be other sequels of sorts. His manager, Ronald Koeman, knows his own international career ended with a World Cup defeat in the United States, 32 years ago. Perhaps history will repeat itself, even if they are different types of defenders; Koeman the most prolific ever, Van Dijk one of the coolest.

Except, perhaps, in his last World Cup game. Van Dijk risked a red card with a forceful chest barge that sent the melodramatic agent provocateur Leandro Paredes flying; the draw with Argentina acquired the tag of “the battle of Lusail”. It was a clash of the heavyweights. The Netherlands had been ranked as potential World Cup winners.

Do they now? A clash with a dangerous Japan side may offer an insight. Then Van Dijk faces a reunion with his club teammate Alexander Isak, whose abject ineffectiveness was a reason why the defender deemed Liverpool’s season “unacceptable”.

His own has been mixed, and yet he has never felt more pivotal. He was a steadfast ally to one fellow Dutchman, in Arne Slot, who publicly and privately was grateful that a veteran was always available. Another compatriot, Koeman, has also given him a heavy workload.

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Virgil van Dijk could be about to play in his last World Cup (Getty)

Van Dijk enters the World Cup with 4,941 minutes under his belt for his club this season, a further 810 for his country. He could crash through the 6,000-minute barrier against Tunisia in the last group game. And this is a man who turns 35 before the quarter-finals.

Increasingly, he stands alone. He has been stripped of his sidekicks. For Liverpool, he was often flanked by Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate, but now both are gone, the Scot predictably, the Frenchman suddenly; Van Dijk wanted each to stay. For the Netherlands, his probable partner may have been Jurrien Timber, until injury ruled him out of the World Cup. Cue another reshuffle. Koeman has a gifted group of defenders, but Van Dijk is still paramount.

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Netherlands’ Virgil van Dijk, Frenkie de Jong and Wout Weghorst during training (Reuters)

Which, in a way, reflects the extraordinary nature of his career. When the Dutch last crossed the Atlantic for a World Cup, in 2014, Van Dijk was omitted. He was approaching 23, ranked behind the younger Terence Kongolo, later of Huddersfield Town. The manager at the time was the one who made him captain of the Dutch team for the 2022 tournament, under Louis van Gaal.

“He did not pass the selection committee,” Van Gaal explained in 2018. “He often let forwards walk in behind him. Furthermore, he did not defend forward, and that is very important in my philosophy.”

Van Dijk has never been a front-foot defender; he exuded authority as a last line, a player who, at his peak, made very few tackles but could go for a season without being dribbled past. In some ways, he has never really been a Dutch-style defender. The Dutch school of thought necessitates left-footed centre-backs for passing angles. Van Dijk is a right-footer who prefers to play on the left side. A man who reached the Ballon d’Or podium may have been underrated in his own country; Slot admitted to being surprised by how good Van Dijk was on the ball after working with him.

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Virgil van Dijk has his penalty saved in the shootout during the Qatar World Cup quarter-final (Getty)

Extraordinary as Van Gaal’s decision to omit Van Dijk in 2014 looks now, his progress thereafter was swift, some of it under Koeman at Southampton. Van Dijk joined Liverpool in January 2018 for £75m, the highest fee anyone had ever paid for a defender.

Yet the Netherlands did not even qualify for the 2018 World Cup; Van Dijk played in a Champions League final that year but not a World Cup. He has been central to their renaissance after the lows of the late 2010s. Injury meant Van Dijk missed Euro 2020; his tournament debut did not come until his thirties. But for Ollie Watkins’s injury-time winner for England in a semi-final in Dortmund, he might have led his country to Euro 2024 glory. Now for a World Cup in which, as ever, hopes rest on Van Dijk’s sizeable shoulders.