You can also listen to the article in audio version.
Virgil. This name lights up every game on his shirt next to the traditional No. 4 instead of van Dijk’s surname.
For Virgil, this is a sensitive matter. His parents separated and he stayed for a time with his father, who introduced him to football. When Virgil returned to his mother at the age of 11, Ron van Dijk cut off all contact with the family. His son did not forgive him and still does not want to talk about it. And that’s why “only” Virgil is on the pitch, not van Dijk.
Virgil has interesting roots at all. The father is Dutch, but the mother is of Afro-Surinamese-Chinese descent. First, a descendant of African slaves who were originally taken from Africa to sugarcane plantations in America. But to make it not so easy, Hellen Chin Fo Sieeuw’s mother’s great-grandfather emigrated from Guangdong, China to Suriname around 1920.
Now Virgil, with a Dutch passport, plays in a top Premier League club. At 32, he has had an amazing career. Although his best years are probably behind him, he is still considered one of the best defenders of his generation. Famous for his height of 195 cm, strength, leadership, speed and excellent orientation in aerial duels, he caused problems for all famous strikers who ever came across him.
With Liverpool, van Dijk immediately reached the final of the UEFA Champions League. And he won. He won the PFA Premier League Player of the Year award in his first full season. He later won the FIFA Club World Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and won the 2019–20 Premier League, returning the league title to Liverpool after 30 years. He is the only defender to have won the UEFA Player of the Year award and finished second in the Ballon d’Or and FIFA Best Player competitions.
Let’s describe in more detail the abilities of the center, which almost everyone would like to have in the team. An extremely physical centre-back who can do it on the left as well as on the right. He has a sense of pace, good technique, a great right foot. Plus, he can read the game and exudes healthy confidence when he plays.
He is tactically aware, has great positional play and foresight. Lionel Messi said about him some time ago in an interview with the newspaper Marca: “He is a defender with a sense of timing, he knows how to wait for the right moment. He is very fast, big, but has a lot of agility for his height. He is impressive both in defense and attack because he can score goals.’
He climbed up slowly
But Virgil wasn’t a comet that rocketed upward from childhood. It would be better to say that he progressed slowly step by step. In the beginning, it even went very stiff. He really came to the fore during his time at Southampton and became a big star after joining Liverpool at the age of 27. As if this special guy always grew with the size of the team he played for.
He still remembers how he and his younger brother at home in Kesteren, a small village near Aarnhem, dug into the michuda wherever they could. On the street, they dribbled against concrete walls… Then on Saturday morning they played matches. It was said to be a great childhood.
He started like any young footballer. From smaller clubs to bigger ones. At the age of eight, he joined Willem II’s academy and at the same time started earning a little extra. As a teenager, he washed dishes part-time. “I didn’t have a contract at the time. I didn’t think I had a future as a footballer, but I also knew I had to work to earn something.”
Virgil was 17, suddenly grew by about 18 cm and was moved to the central defender position in the Willem II reserves. In truth, he didn’t have anything for free there and the then reserve manager Edwin Hermans had no idea that he could move the youngster to the first team.
He almost died at the age of 20
The club did not want to give him a contract, he was not promising for them, so Virgil eventually left for FC Groningen. But even there, at first, he pushed in vain for the “A”. Bosses thought he was “pulled” from the academy by Willem II.
It wasn’t until May 2011, at the age of 19, that he made his debut for the first team. He scored his first goal that month. He played less than three seasons in Groningen. But at one point he experienced real hell there. He fought for his life.
Shortly after his 20th birthday, he had to go to the hospital with advanced appendicitis, peritonitis and kidney poisoning. FC Groningen’s doctors, even at the local hospital, did not immediately recognize how serious it was. He immediately went into surgery, where they actually saved his life.
He was in the hospital for 13 days, lost a lot of blood and couldn’t walk for 10 days. He even had to sign a will in case of death. The return was long and rough. It took several months for Virgil to fully recover.
It wasn’t until Southampton that he started to shine
From FC Groningen he eventually headed to Celtic Glasgow. And it was only here that better times began to dawn on him. He helped Celtic win the Scottish Premiership, was named in the Scottish Team of the Year and won the Scottish League Cup in both seasons with the club.
He joined Southampton in 2015 and signed for Liverpool in January 2018 for £75 million, then the world record transfer fee for a defender.
You already know the rest. We probably don’t need to remind you that at the same time, as a captain, he is also an important support of the national team.
Today, Virgil is a pretty serious guy with no scandals swirling around him. He has been married for seven years to Rike Nooitgedagt, whom he met as a teenager. They have four children that they try to raise so that they are fair to themselves and to life. Just like they tried to raise him at home.
