Maldini Was Right About Van Dijk But We Ignored Him.

[0:00]If you have to make a sliding tackle, it means you've already made a mistake, Paolo Maldini. Now imagine a center back who goes 65 matches without ever going to ground. Hardest defender I say, Virgil Van Dijk. Liverpool were hammered by Manchester City, and most people are blaming the captain. He's turning 35 and for many, he's finished. But what most people miss is his technique. He almost never makes a sliding tackle. In the final months of his career at Groningen, Van Dijk received a straight red card for a late reckless sliding tackle. His career wasn't going anywhere. Something had to change. But nobody wanted him. Ajax were offered him, their scout said he was too slow. He arrived at Celtic as a player nobody believed in. He became so technically dominant that he started carrying the ball from his own penalty area to the opponent's. A center back who scored like a forward. Southampton was proof that Van Dijk could be everything English football expects from a central defender. In his first Premier League season, he made 59 successful tackles. The British press loved him, but at Southampton, he averaged just 0.6 fouls per game. Not a single red card at Southampton. Not a single red card during his entire time there. Then Liverpool paid 75 million pounds for him. Everything changed under Klopp. Liverpool played with a high defensive line, fullbacks pushed forward, and Van Dijk was left alone to cover space that in any other system would require three defenders. In that situation, a sliding tackle is the last option. Van Dijk explained it himself, you step in too early, you give the attacker the space to get past you. The longer you wait, the more the attacker panics. He forced Sissoko to shoot with his weaker foot. But there's something else that statistics can't show. Attackers who found themselves one on one with Van Dijk didn't even try to get past him. They played it back. Player who takes options away from the opponent without any physical contact. That season, Liverpool conceded just 22 goals in the entire Premier League. The following season when they won the title. 33. Through that entire period, not one player got past Van Dijk. Mbappe had his chance in 2018. The hype around him then was what surrounds Yamal today, plus a World Cup in Russia at 19 years old. He broke through in full sprint, the fastest attacker on the planet in open space. Van Dijk tracked him, pushed him away from goal, all the way inside the penalty area, and only then with a perfectly timed lateral block. Eden Hazard at Chelsea was the definition of unpredictability. He admitted it was impossible to get past Van Dijk because he was massive and quick, which is genuinely rare. Tall defenders are usually slow. In the 92nd minute of a match after a Liverpool corner, Barcelona broke on the counter. Virgil sprinted the full length of the pitch from the opposition box back to his own. Ramos is the opposite kind of defender. He uses the sliding tackle as a weapon. He'll take a red card if it means stopping a goal. Van Dijk went 65 matches without anyone getting past him. Zero red cards. So if he doesn't slide, what does he actually do? He sends the attacker a message, he'll take the ball without getting dirty because he uses a half-turned body position. Instead of standing directly in front of the attacker, he's always angled at 45 degrees. That allows him to explode in either direction without losing balance. Virgil is a master at making the attacker believe there's space, while actually guiding them towards their weaker foot or towards a covering defender. He defends with positioning, not contact. But what happens when a defender like this is actually forced to slide? The answer is the Napoli match in the Champions League. Van Dijk was forced into a sliding tackle on Mertens. He won the ball cleanly, but 92 kg at full sprint cannot stop instantly. The momentum carried his body across Mertens's ankle. Yellow card. Napoli had every right to demand a red. If he misses a sliding tackle, it isn't just a failed intervention, it's a red card, a destroyed match. Who was the first player to get past Prime Van Dijk? When Liverpool beat Arsenal 3-1, the biggest story wasn't the result. Someone had got past Van Dijk. Nicolas Pepe did something Messi never could. He found an angle Van Dijk hadn't covered, but the mistake didn't even lead to a goal. That summer, he was named UEFA Men's Player of the Year. Usually, whoever wins that award takes the Ballon d'Or. That season, Van Dijk had 75% of aerial duels won. Liverpool kept 21 clean sheets in the Premier League with him. Zero red cards, just 12 fouls across the entire season. Roughly one foul every three matches. But football's aesthetic always leans towards goal scorers, and Messi had 51 goals and 22 assists in 50 matches. I think Messi is the best player in the world. I think he deserves it. Then came October 2020. Pickford challenged Van Dijk inside the penalty area and completely tore his anterior cruciate ligament. They find Van Dijk is onside. That's a penalty. Nine months out. Pickford didn't even receive a yellow card because the offside flag was raised. Because technically, the foul never happened in the books. I do not want to say Jordan Pickford wanted to do it, but it is of course not a challenge. How a goalie can do it in the box, because there is another player and if it is not offside, it is 100 per cent a penalty and so it is nothing. Liverpool's win rate dropped from nearly 70% to 53. A team that had been on course for the title barely scraped into the Champions League. I played too many games and my body broke down. Many doubted he could play twice a week after ACL surgery. He played 51 matches that season. Klopp said just one thing. Everyone can see Virgil is back. Virgil remained elite for one reason. His game never depended on sliding tackles. But the following season showed Van Dijk is human too. Liverpool's midfield collapsed. People started saying, Van Dijk had become slow. Meanwhile, Klopp was heading for the exit, the end of an era was in the air. After Henderson left, Klopp gave the armband to Van Dijk. By February and March of 2024, Klopp had virtually no first team players left fit. In that chaos, Van Dijk was the only constant. He had to play every single minute. There was no one to replace him. If he had been a defender who relied on sliding tackles, his operated knee would have given out by March. He was a lighthouse in a fog of injuries. He scored the winning goal in the 118th minute of the Cup final. A perfect farewell gift to Klopp in his last season. Under Klopp, Van Dijk played 270 matches, 102 clean sheets, 23 goals, and in six years and 270 matches, just one direct red card. Arne Slot brought a calmer Liverpool, a more disciplined midfield. That was the foundation Van Dijk's technique needed. The biggest change Slot made, the one that directly protected Van Dijk, was transforming Ryan Gravenberch into an elite defensive midfielder. Slot built a system that protects him. After winning the Premier League, Van Dijk signed a new contract, keeping him at Liverpool until the summer of 2027. As results dipped and his 35th birthday approached, critics demanded to see the captain throwing himself in the mud. Van Dijk never changed his technique at 34 with an operated knee. If he starts sliding, he ends his own career. Center back is the easiest position on the pitch. It's the only position where you still see 40 year olds playing for top European clubs. While younger teammates around him break down, Van Dijk with his operated knee at 34 plays every single minute of every match. While Salah, a classic winger, is on his way out. Maldini said that line as proof of reading the game. Van Dijk was the first to truly live it. Van Dijk wasn't always a center back. At his local club, he desperately wanted to be a striker. At 17, he grew 18 centimeters in a single year. I grow like 18 cm, I think it was exactly. And I had knee problems, growing problems. And only then did his position as a center back become permanent. But the attacking instinct never left. At Groningen in a crucial playoff match, his team was losing and the manager sent him on as an improvised center forward. Van Dijk scored two goals and saved the team, and that instinct is exactly why he doesn't slide. He knows what an attacker wants in a one-on-one duel. But when he does slide, 11 tackles in the entire Premier League season so far. When he commits, he wins the ball over 65% of the time. He doesn't avoid it because he lacks the technique, he saves it for when the attacker least expects it.