Celtic struck gold back in 2013 when they spotted, signed, and transformed Virgil Van Dijk from a young defender into a Premier League quality central defender. The Dutchman is chasing a Quadruple with Liverpool and given his stellar displays at the back for Jurgen Klopp’s side, it is worth looking at how impressive a feat it was signing Van Dijk in the first place.
In a recent book by Dutch journalist Jan Willem Spaans speaking about the development and rise to stardom of Virgil Van Dijk back in 2020.The book, named ‘Virgil Van Dijk: A Day in the Life’, takes the reader through Van Dijk’s career from an amateur Dutch player to league winner at Celtic. Van Dijk would move to Liverpool after a spell at Southampton where he would win a Champions League and win Liverpool’s first Premier League in 30 years.
Van Dijk joined Celtic from FC Groningen in 2013 for just £2.5m and the book details how the Dutch side came about signing the defender. Van Dijk excelled under Neil Lennon and then Ronny Deila taking him from the uncut gem to the polished Ballon D’Or runner up.
“If FC Groningen had to conjure up a five-a-side team of their former players, they could put out Virgil alongside Luis Suarez, Arjen Robben, Dusan Tadic and Filip Kostic. Not too bad for a side from an isolated city in the north of the country. That the former member city of the Hanseatic League got to enjoy Virgil as a first-team player for two seasons, is partly down to good work by scout Grads Fühler and also owes to geographical chance.
“Fühler had not been following him for a long time. The discovery occurs on Saturday, October 3, 2009. Willem II’s U18’s, at the time sharing an academy with RKC, face PSV Eindhoven. Fühler lives in Eindhoven at that time, he has a scouting trip to Belgium planned for that weekend, but decides to make a quick stop in Tilburg too after looking at the fixtures.
“Virgil immediately stood out to me, he was wearing the captain’s armband too. Obviously, everybody knows about his appearance. But he also seemed to find it easy to play the game, played passes over forty, fifty yards without problems and he already found it simple to win the one-on-ones. But he did already seem to take things a little lightly, it all looked a bit lax. I got the impression that the boy needed a challenge. He needed to move to a higher level, get some training in and develop himself further. What I saw did really impress me a lot.”
“But that’s just the first step. FC Groningen was a step up from Willem II on every front back in 2009, it still isn’t a widespread occurrence that a youth player moves to the other end of the country to still play in the same division. Fühler decides to go and give it a try anyway.
“He can’t believe his luck when he hears of Virgil’s status with the Tricolores, as if he were an art connoisseur finding a forgotten-about Monet painting lying around somewhere. At half-time, I popped into the academy’s clubhouse. I ended up in conversation. I wanted to know how Virgil’s situation at Willem II is.
“The man tells me he’s an amateur, that he doesn’t train with the first team and that he only plays with the U18’s. Well, I immediately called Henk Veldmate, my superior at Groningen at the time. I said ‘Henk, I’ve spotted someone here. He’s not tied down, and I think we need to try and get him to come to Groningen.’ Then Henk went to have a look for himself. Forty-five minutes in, he calls me and confirms what I had said earlier. We were going to take action.”
Celtic did ever so well to sign the player. Neil Lennon has spoken about his desire to get the deal done as soon as possible before anyone realised how good Van Dijk was. It is testament to Lennon that he was able to convince the club to take a punt on the little-known defender.
Anyone that watched Van Dijk in his two years at Celtic Park would have noticed that there was a top talent on show. Van Dijk was two-footed and glided through games. The free-kick he scored at Easter Road as well as his solo effort at McDiarmid Park proved just how good he was. The partnership with Jason Denayer that developed under Ronny Deila propelled Van Dijk to another level as Deila promoted complete professionalism, which has helped Van Dijk through his career.
Van Dijk will continue with Klopp as they look to seal history for Liverpool. The player is remembered fondly at Celtic but it was obvious that he was destined for a more competitive league. The only potential downside is that Celtic may have undersold him.
