Virgil van Dijk

Known for his very smooth ball-playing defending skills, Virgil van Dijk is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a centre back for Premier League club Liverpool and captains the Netherlands national football team.

Born on 8th July 1991, Van Dijk is a right-footed centre back, who usually features on the left-hand side of central defence, although he can be used as a right-sided centre back.

He possesses aerial prowess, skills from dead ball situations, and strong leadership qualities.

Background

After beginning his career with Groningen, he moved to Celtic in 2013. He made 62 appearances for Groningen and managed to score 7 goals for his club.

Virgil Van Dijk helped his side win the Scottish Premiership with his defending skills and was named in the PFA Scotland Team of the Year in both of his seasons due to his impressive performance, and later won the Scottish League Cup for Celtic.

Van Dijk joined Southampton in September 2015 where he scored 4 goals in 67 games he played.

Van Dijk currently plays for Liverpool since he joined Liverpool in January 2018 for £75 million and became the most expensive defender in the world.

Debut

On October 10th, 2015, Van Dijk made his full international debut for Netherlands in a 2–1 victory against Kazakhstan in a UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier.

On 26th March, he scored his first international goal to conclude a 3-0 win over European champions Portugal at the Stade de Geneve.

Club Career

In 2009, Van Dijk started his youth career with Willem II before transferring to Groningen in 2010 on a free transfer. He made his professional debut for Groningen against ADO Den Haag on 1st May 2011, coming on as a 72nd-minute substitute during the 4-2 victory.

On 21st June 2013, Van Dijk signed a four year long deal with Celtic for a fee of around £2.6 million, including a 10% selling-on fee for Groningen. On 17th August, He made his debut for Celtic, as a replacement in the final 13 minutes of a 2-0 Scottish Premiership win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie Stadium.

Captaincy

In March 2018, Virgil was awarded the captaincy of his country by manager Ronald Koeman, but the start of his captaincy career was not appealing as he faced a 1-0 home friendly defeat by England the next day.

Records

Van Dijk was honoured with Southampton Player of the Season in 2015 and PFA Scotland Team of the Year in 2013 and 2014.

He was part of Celtic when they lifted Scottish Premiership twice in 2013–14 and 2014–15 and Scottish League Cup in the same season.