Virgil Van Dijk joined Liverpool during the January transfer window of 2018 for a reported fee of £75 million making him the most expensive defender in the world.
And initially, there were a lot of eyebrows raised regarding the huge sum of money that the Reds had chosen to spend on a defender.
Jurgen Klopp received a lot of negative criticism for paying an inflated price for Virgil Van Dijk and some pundits even predicted the Dutchman to fail.
But he has been anything but a failure.
During the 2018-19 season, Van Dijk was not only the best defender in the Premier League but he was also the best in Europe.
And now, it is being claimed that Virgil Van Dijk could be the first player since 2006(Fabio Cannavaro) to win the Ballon d’Or.
Here’s what the Liverpool defender had to say about it.
“It’s an honour if people are talking about it, but what can I do? I have no influence on anything,” Van Dijk said.
“The people that have an influence on it, they have to decide who’s going to win it.
“I can’t deny that I’ve had a pretty good season last year, so the only thing I can do now is just focus on the new season, getting fit, stay fit and hopefully get an even better season than I had last year.
“Maybe now, I don’t know.
“I can understand the fact that normally strikers or No.10s win these kinds of awards because it’s more attractive to see. But maybe the time has come to change it.”
Last season Virgil Van Dijk featured in every Premier League game for Liverpool and not one single player was able to dribble past the Dutchman.
