Virgil van Dijk: Liverpool's Constant in a Time of Change
Virgil van Dijk has spent a career making chaos look calm. Now, as Liverpool’s defence is ripped up and rewritten around him, his importance has rarely felt sharper.
The captain turned 35 last month. He is deep into the final year of the two-year extension he signed in April 2025. On paper, that usually signals the start of a long farewell. On the pitch and inside the dressing room, there is nothing remotely sentimental about his role.
This is still his back line. His team. His standard.
A new manager, an old pillar
Andoni Iraola is the third manager Van Dijk has played under at Anfield. The cast around him has changed dramatically. The responsibility has not.
Giovanni Leoni is 19. Jeremy Jacquet is 21. Neither has kicked a ball in the Premier League for Liverpool. Joe Gomez is again wrestling with injuries. Ronald Araujo is on the brink of arriving from Barcelona on an emergency loan, another sign of how quickly the centre-back department has been reshaped.
In the middle of it all stands Van Dijk, the one constant in a rapidly shifting landscape. For a new head coach stepping into the intensity of Liverpool, that presence is priceless.
Even in his mid-30s, he remains an elite defender and a powerful voice behind the scenes, a reference point at a time when uncertainty reigns elsewhere in the squad.
A brutal year in the legs
The price of that reliability has been punishing.
No player in Europe’s top five leagues logged more minutes than Van Dijk last season. Before the World Cup, he had already amassed 5,841 minutes. He then played every minute of the Netherlands’ run to the last-32, pushing his total to 6,141 minutes across 69 appearances for club and country.
That works out at 89 minutes per game, on average. For a 35-year-old. For a player who suffered a serious ACL injury in October 2020.
It is the sort of load that breaks careers. Van Dijk’s response was to demand a pause.
He asked for more time off than usual this summer, and after making his first pre-season appearance in Sunday’s 3-2 defeat to Monaco, he explained why.
"I've had six, seven or eight days [training], so I was very keen to get minutes in my legs and glad I came out of it with no issues," he said, relieved to be back in rhythm rather than simply back on the grass.
Choosing rest over the roadshow
Van Dijk did something else unusual for a Liverpool star in pre-season: he skipped the lucrative tour of the United States. That was his call.
After a three-week break following the World Cup, he went to the club and made his case. Long-haul flights, time-zone swings, commercial duties – all of it eats into the most important weeks of physical preparation.
He chose the AXA Training Centre instead of the American roadshow.
"I definitely asked for a good break because I felt like I needed it, not only physically but mentally as well," he said.
"It was a very demanding year from before pre-season started last year until the day I got knocked out of the World Cup so I felt like I needed a good break and I had maybe three days more than Ryan (Gravenberch), Flo (Wirtz) and Alex (Isak).
"For me it was key I didn't want to go to America because I didn't want to get jet lag and after come back from that as well.
"And I felt like having a couple of extra days at the AXA, doing the testing before the team was there and getting ready for when the team was back to immediately crack on, I felt that was for me personally the best way."
This is a veteran thinking like one. Protect the body. Protect the mind. Protect the season.
All in for Iraola
Behind the scenes, Van Dijk moved quickly to align himself with Iraola. The pair spoke in the first week after the appointment was confirmed, and the captain left no doubt about where he stands.
"It has been absolutely fine [working with Iraola], we had a great conversation in the first week when it got announced and the main thing for him to know is that I am here for him regardless.
"Anything he needs, wants to know, wants me to do for the team or whatever I am here for him and hopefully we will be successful this season and that's what we want."
He made a point of respecting what came before, too.
"Nothing to take away from Arne and his staff, we had an amazing time together, obviously last year a disappointment. This year we have a new manager who has new ways of preparation.
"So we have to adapt to a new staff, different training methods but I liked working under Arne and I am sure I will like working under the new manager."
New ideas, same ambition. The man in the middle of the pitch is not clinging to the past.
‘Are you going to say I’m 35 and I can’t do it?’
The obvious question hangs over any 35-year-old defender asked to anchor a side fighting on four fronts. Van Dijk meets it head-on.
"Yes [I'm ready to go again]," he says. "Are you going to say I'm 35 years old and I can't do it?
"At the end of the day, you have to look after yourself. You have to be, I wouldn't say lucky, but you have to do everything in your power.
"That is the bare minimum for me because I feel the responsibility to be ready for each and every game. We play every three days. Between games, at home, at the training ground, you have to do everything in your power to be ready to play again.
"For me, I feel good. I am also a late bloomer so you know, maybe...it is what it is."
There is no nostalgia in his tone, only defiance and duty.
"I feel fine and I want to make all the fans proud all over the world that support us wherever we go, and that is by winning games and by showing what it means to wear the shirt every time, and that is for me the bare minimum anyway, so we keep going."
A captain in the middle of a rebuild
The wider picture around him is unmistakable. Liverpool are changing fast.
Ibrahima Konate has gone. Andy Robertson has gone. Mohamed Salah has gone. All of that only a year after a major reshaping of the squad. Iraola steps into a club that has already lived through one transition and is now plunging into another.
Van Dijk, heading into what will be his 10th season at Anfield, feels it as clearly as anyone.
"It definitely feels like a bit of a transition, for sure," he says. "It is down to everyone associated with Liverpool to make sure we are building something that will be successful for years to come.
"This year, we want to be successful, but there is a lot of work still to be done.
"We all know how difficult it is to be playing in the Premier League, the League Cup, the FA Cup, and the Champions League, so we need everyone at their best.
"We need to be consistent and win more games. Let's see what the next couple of weeks are going to bring [in the transfer window]. Any quality we can add to the team will definitely be welcome so let's see."
The new centre-backs will arrive. The system will evolve. The dressing room will shift again.
Through it all, Liverpool’s season may come down to a familiar question: how long can Virgil van Dijk keep bending time, holding back the years as comfortably as he once held back opposition forwards?
