‘Calm as you like’ is how Virgil van Dijk’s distribution is described in the Liverpool fans’ chant in his name, and the same can be applied to his response to a fresh wave of criticism from his homeland.
The 32-year-old and his Netherlands teammates have come in for stick from some Dutch media outlets, something which isn’t a novel experience for the defender, although he’s unsurprisingly unfazed by the naysayers back home.
The Reds captain told Algemeen Dagblad: “You don’t have control over people’s opinions. One person may have very high expectations of us, while the other may have said before this European Championship that ‘they will be back in the Netherlands in no time’.
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“If you listen to everyone who has something to say, your feelings will continue to fluctuate. That’s part of it. That is also the case at the club. It’s football, everyone has an opinion.”
When asked if he gets annoyed by the seemingly endless criticism from some Dutch pundits, Van Dijk replied: “No. If that were the case I would really have a very unpleasant life. How you want to see it also depends on how you approach or want to approach life. For journalists it is something to talk about and that is fine.”
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Van Dijk has been operating at an elite level of football for long enough to allow criticism to wash off him like water off a duck’s back, instead letting his performances for club and country do the talking.
He enjoyed an excellent season as Liverpool were back challenging for the Premier League title in 2023/24 until the final month of the campaign, while he’s also helped Netherlands to reach the knockout rounds of Euro 2024 with a game to spare and have a plausible opportunity to top their group ahead of France.
Indeed, the Oranje were somewhat unlucky not to have beaten the 2022 World Cup finalists last Friday, with Xavi Simons deprived of a winner by a contentious offside decision following a VAR review, so you’d have to wonder what more certain Dutch pundits could want.
Van Dijk’s own performances at the tournament have been positive, too. He ranks as his country’s fourth-best performer according to WhoScored metrics, completing 91.7% of his passes, winning seven aerial duels, playing eight accurate long balls and making a whopping 14 clearances so far in Germany.
The captain of his club and nation won’t be flustered by a few harsh opinions from his native land. He’ll keep doing what he does best and, so long as that continues, Netherlands have every chance of reaching a first European quarter-final since 2008 this summer.
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