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Of all the players around Europe to chastise, to suggest hasn’t had a positive impact on teammates and to berate for not playing well enough, Virgil van Dijk will feel like a baffling choice to regular viewers of the Premier League.
As an individual star and then as captain, the Dutch defender has raised Liverpool to regular trophy winners, been the most accomplished centre-back in the game and won everything going since moving to Anfield, as well as finishing second in the 2019 Ballon d’Or, a mere seven vote points behind Lionel Messi.
Yet as can so often be the case, the domestic perception of a player does not match the international one on home soil. Van Dijk has been pilloried by some of the biggest names in Dutch football history, not just once, not just at this tournament, but relentlessly, for years.
Given that the Netherlands have struggled to consistently impress at major tournaments and clearly don’t have as strong a squad now as they have had in decades gone by, some criticism is expected – and with Van Dijk as captain, he’s a natural lightning rod for harsh words. Even so, some of the accusations appear beyond the normal range, while certain specific complaints would not resonate with those who watch him regularly.
Chief among the critics’ voices has been three-time Ballon d’Or winner and arguably the second-biggest name in Oranje history, Marco van Basten.
Only two weeks ago, he was adding to his long-running critique of Van Dijk’s performances following a Euro 2024 defeat to Austria. “He’s got to lead and he’s the one we’re going to hold accountable in the end,” he fumed post-match. “He has to organise things and he is responsible. He is the great leader of the team and you have to organise these kinds of things better.”
For sure, Van Dijk – and the Netherlands as a whole – didn’t have a great outing that day, but as Austria showed at the tournament, they were in fact one of the better nations, well organised, capable of upsets. Since then though, the team who knocked Austria out – Turkey – have in turn been vanquished by the Dutch, who now face England in the semi-finals.
Now with Van Dijk still leading them onwards in Germany, the question is of whether what they have achieved so far is enough to silence those famous faces; whether unexpected progression is enough to placate dissenting voices – or if emulating them by reaching the final itself in Berlin is what it takes to do so.
After all, the Netherlands have reached the Euros final precisely once: 1988, with Van Basten leading the line and Van Dijk’s current manager, Ronald Koeman, anchoring the defence. They’ve never been back since on this particular stage and indeed it’s 20 years since they last reached even a semi-final at the European Championship.
Prior to this summer, while the Oranje reached the 2010 World Cup final and the semis four years later, at the Euros they’ve managed a dismal return of a quarter-final, a group-stage exit, failure to qualify and bottom 16 across a four-tournament run between 2008 and 2020.
That already makes Van Dijk and his team a significant historic improvement, despite the hurdles they’ve had to overcome heading into the tournament.
Yet Van Basten’s dismissal of the current captain’s leadership goes back much, much further than the group stage.
In March of last year, following a Nations League defeat, the former striker said: “In the dressing room he is good, football tactically and technically not. This has nothing to do with that injury, this has to do with leadership. He makes noise, but he says nothing. That’s true. This is in you. This is wanting to win at all costs. He is not clear [...] he creates chaos. That leads to misunderstandings. That is what you, as a captain, must prevent.”
There was earlier criticism too: blaming Van Dijk for an Ecuador goal at the 2022 World Cup, criticising him in September of that year for contributing “so little for the Dutch national team in the build-up” and more besides.
Van Basten, it must be counterbalanced, often has an awful lot to say.
The general consensus of brains and voices in the world of football appears to be Marco van Basten: great player, not always great ideas. To put it more succinctly, Van Basten was labelled full of “immeasurable bulls***” by one top-flight boss, following the Dutch icon’s attempt to remove the offside law and penalty shootouts from the game as Fifa’s technical chief.
But isn’t only him who wore the orange shirt then and has scathing opinions now. Fellow Euro ‘88 champion Ruud Gullit accused Van Dijk of “playing safe” and maintained he was the best in the world because he “thinks he’s better than the rest”. After another Nations League defeat last year he added:
“Despite the fact that they are idolised in the Netherlands, often to loud applause, I find that these two important players do not measure up. They do not reach the level that can be required of them as decisive international leaders. I think Van Dijk and [Frenkie] De Jong don’t have leadership skills.”
At least those two ex-pros have the winning experience to back up what they are looking for. Rafael van der Vaart has been similarly critical during the current tournament, with his 109 caps mostly came as an in-and-out starter at major tournaments, although he did feature in the 2010 final... which the Dutch lost to Spain.
Then again, perhaps the event and circumstance of an actual final is acknowledged as a one-off occasion, with the journey – the getting there – the real proof of greatness and achievement, of being – to use Van Basten’s own word – accountable for a team’s success.
If so, Van Dijk and his side are just one step away: from their biggest chance at glory in a decade and a half, from their first major men’s prize in almost four decades and, maybe more satisfyingly for the skipper, from disproving yesterday’s icons for good.
