Virgil van Dijk has stated his aim is to become a legend at Liverpool and revealed details of his transformation from right-back to the centre of defence at Groningen.

The Netherlands captain gave an extensive interview to the BBC where he spoke about his early days at Groningen before speaking about his ambitions with Liverpool.

On his growth spurt at Groningen, van Dijk revealed, “I wasn’t tall until I had a growth spurt – at 16 my younger brother was getting taller than me. Over the summer I turned 17, I grew 18 centimetres.

My knee was a bit unstable. I had groin problems. I had so many problems, then I had proper rehab with physios and was out for six weeks. After that, I started playing well.

At 16, I was a slow right-back and wasn’t good enough to play centre-back. I was never a standout player until I played for the under-19s and became the captain. Then everything went much better – I played some games for the under-23s and after that it went pretty quickly.

When I went to FC Groningen, I had to take my bike to training – my first wage went on driving lessons. Before I signed my contract, I was 15 or 16 and working as a dishwasher in a Breda restaurant. I trained Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and played Saturday and worked on a Wednesday and Sunday evening from six to midnight. “

On how he would like to be remembered after his career, van Dijk stated, “As a legend of Liverpool. I want to achieve amazing things here. We have a fantastic squad, we have everything, we have all the tools. They went all out to get me and I want to give everything for them.”

You can read the full interview by clicking here.




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