I was at Virgil van Dijk’s first training, I will never forget what he did

“His first day he strolled forward with the ball. I’ll never forget his first day,” Mulgrew recalls. “We paid £2.5 million from Groningen for him. There were a lot of signings like that at Celtic. It was a toss of a coin, what you got. But he looked good, but you never know.”

“He walked up with a game against Crewe. It was on the training ground and Crewe had come for a pre-season friendly. He walked up and hit the ball from about 35 yards off the underside of the crossbar, and you thought : , ‘This man is doing well’. And he was brilliant.’

The 38-year-old also noted that the Netherlands international learned an important lesson in the Champions League while playing for Celtic, where he could hone his skills to become a key player for Liverpool in the future.

Mulgrew continued: “But his first competitive match was a Champions League qualifier against Karagandy and we were beaten 2-0 in Kazakhstan. And he was dropped for the home game because he was bullied by the striker. I remember. And he got dropped.

“So this was the thing, he was used to playing in the Netherlands and having a lot of the ball and probably a lot on the ground, and suddenly we went there and it was just hitting the ball for a long time. But he learned his lesson well , because he never played the second leg and of course never left the team afterwards.”

After winning two Scottish Premiership titles and one League Cup with Celtic, Van Dijk made a £13 million move to Southampton, where he attracted the attention of even more high-profile clubs, including Liverpool.

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The defender made the move to Anfield for £75million in 2018 and has not looked back. He became one of the best centre-backs of the modern Premier League era, winning numerous honors with Liverpool.

So far, Van Dijk has secured the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the Community Shield, the League Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup with Liverpool. This season he is on course to challenge for the title again.