A clearly elated Virgil van Dijk was sporting a wide grin and looking like he’d barely broken a sweat. The Liverpool defender had just completed his first 90 minutes for over 10 months, but there were few signs that gave it away. After playing back-to-back Premier League seasons in full for the Reds to help them to 97 and 99-point hauls in 2019 and 20, suddenly Van Dijk was staring into the abyss of his own career as he sat in Liverpool’s Spire Hospital way back on October 17.
Virgil van Dijk said: “You’re going from one day of being fully fit to the next day you can’t walk. You’re full of medication, you’re full of pain, you can’t sleep. Everyone has their opinion and you read those things because you have nothing to do.”
The quickness of his general recovery was cited as a reason to be optimistic at the time, as was his otherwise flawless injury record, but those around the club simply had no real idea how Van Dijk would emerge from the other side in those early days of his rehabilitation. Two people Van Dijk highlights as big helps on his trek down recovery road are Dr Andreas Schlumberger and his fellow centre-back Joe Gomez, a player he describes as his “little brother.” Dr Schlumberger joined the club in December as head of recovery and performance, a specialist role that was designed to bridge a gap between the medical team and the coaching staff.
Virgil Van Dijk said: “Andreas Schlumberger came in and helped me a lot and physios back in Holland so it is all credit to them. It has been a tough road but I am just happy to be out there again. We will see what it brings. To have pre-season to be out there with the guys was fantastic and I enjoyed every bit of it. The journey me and Joe Gomez have had is that if you experience it, you understand what it is. It is not easy to be out. I am proud of myself and proud of the people who helped me like my wife and kids.”
Van Dijk spent the best part of two months in Dubai at the world-renowned NAS Complex in an effort to accelerate the recovery process. Yoga sessions, exercise bikes and strength and conditioning workouts all formed part of the routine while he caught up with the likes of former Reds team-mate Dejan Lovren and UFC superstar Khabib Nurmagomedov. A February return to Merseyside whet the appetite further for supporters, but the player himself knew there were still several miles to travel. A decision to steer clear of the European Championships with Holland was taken with a heavy heart in May as he accepted his dream of captaining the Dutch at a major tournament at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruyff Arena was over. But, after coming through a pre-season return unscathed, the hard yards were all worth it for Van Dijk as he toasted to a successful comeback in Norfolk on Saturday evening.
Virgil Van Dijk said: “It is very good. Very good. I am proud, a lot of hard work so far has been put in to get where I am and obviously I’ve had a lot of help from my wife and my kids. Obviously, the thing is I have played and the first one was very emotional and very tough for many reasons. You visualise the game so many times in your head before you actually play so as I said to the club I was not tired because of the game – I was tired because of everything around it. And it was sort of like a hurdle. I had to get over that I felt like then it will come again. So that is what happened in my point of view. I kept training well and felt confident in my knee. What is very important is that I kept my fitness up and we kept a clean sheet. To win the first game 3-0 is something we will sign for. But if you look at the game critically, there is a lot to improve but it is the start of the season and we will improve. That is how we hopefully get better and we will give it a go next week.”
It would be foolhardy to believe that Van Dijk was now automatically back to those peerless pre-injury levels just yet, though. Such long-term lay-offs are seldom brushed off without gnawing issues and frank talks with the medical team, something that Van Dijk himself was quick to acknowledge. But while he says the page has not yet turned on the injury tale of his career’s story, a new, happier chapter surely now awaits.
Virgil Van Dijk added: “The first step is to get match fitness and be back to my best but I am not a robot, I need games, time and repetition but I am lucky we have a fantastic manager who helps me and a fantastic squad. It is not the closing of a chapter. It is still getting there. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to be playing from the first time because I feel I need it and it will improve me. My point of view, knowing my own body, and obviously there are plenty of things to improve but I am not a robot. I cannot be back to 100 per cent immediately.”
