With a rush of blood to the head, Jordan Pickford sprinted off his line, his eyes fixated on a loose ball inside his penalty area. Standing in his way was Virgil van Dijk, the defender firmly planted into the ground and unable to give way.
Pickford took off into mid-air and powered through the defender, his studs raised over the ball. Van Dijk collapsed in a heap and was forced out of the Merseyside derby with just 10 minutes on the clock. He would go on to miss almost a year.
The collision with his knee resulted in a sickening crunch, ruling Van Dijk out for 254 days and a grand total of 57 matches. His absence resonated deeply at Anfield.
He was initially able to walk off the pitch on his own on that fateful day in October 2020 but scans revealed he had suffered a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury.
As a result, Van Dijk was sidelined until the following pre-season. The club appeared to slump around him, with an unthinkable chain of events resulting in Jurgen Klopp losing all his senior centre backs, one by one, to injuries that ended their campaigns.
Once he'd reached the dressing room, he discovered he could no longer walk. Later, a physio provided the update he had been dreading. 'It's bad news,' they said.
In his own words, Van Dijk admitted his world collapsed in on itself.
However, after tears and toil, he has returned, perhaps better than ever before. He echoed this sentiment after winning the Carabao Cup at Wembley, his first trophy as the club's captain. It was fitting, of course, that he was the man to head the winner.
'They thought I was finished,' he said, glaring down a camera in the dressing room. These critics, many of whom have gone strangely quiet, couldn't have been more wrong. This is no Lazarus
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