Former Groningen manager Pieter Huistra has revealed what he thought when he saw Liverpool star Virgil van Dijk for the first time.
Huistra advised his club to sign the Dutchman in 2010 after watching the 20-year-old star for Willem II’s reserves and the rest, as they say, is history.
“I told the Groningen technical director that he was a good player, a very interesting player,” Huistra told the Daily Express. “He still had to grow a little bit in terms of muscle. He was a bit lanky at the time and you could see he was not fully developed. But he certainly had some qualities.
“He was a good passer especially and had good defensive positioning. In the beginning, it was difficult but he had a good coach [Dick Lukkien] in the reserves. He had a tendency to train at 60 or 70 percent sometimes but we stamped that out quite quickly. He learned that within two or three months and we saw his performances in games improve.”
OPINION
It’s strange now to think about Van Dijk as a lanky 20-year-old who people in football weren’t altogether sure about. He is now so dominant that we look back at anyone who doubted him as a complete buffoon. It’s not so black and white, of course, and it was obviously a long journey for the Dutchman to get to where he is today. We’ve heard in the past that there were once concerns that Van Dijk didn’t give it his all, that he was too casual on the ball to be a top class defender. However, he has proven that all wrong now. He is arguably the finest defender in world football and he deserves credit for refining his game. This all might not have happened without Huistra, though. Who knows whether Van Dijk would have ever made the grade at Willem II and gone on to be a Premier League star? It may not have happened that way at all. Huistra seeing him in that reserves game was pivotal for his career, and Liverpool fans owe the former Groningen boss a debt of gratitude as a result.
