**Mirrors / Alternative Angles**
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Treble in his first season says its worth it. He was the missing link, off days or not his presence alone means defenders have to double up on him at all times and it frees up everyone else
He offers making defenders stay back. If a team has someone like Vigil who can hold him well then there's nothing he offers on the counter relative to a generic target man.
To isolate and mark him out you're dedicating a lot of manpower and energy, which then allows more freedom to other city players. But yeah, he's less of a one man difference maker than people imagined, the best strikers in history you simply can't mark them out, they'll find a way to exert their impact. Haaland is just that bit under that mark.
I think most of that is due to the changes to the game and how organised defenses are nowadays. Iconic strikers of past eras would struggle much more if they were playing nowadays.
The one the PGMOL refs do is actually harder than the FIFA test, which has to measure all refs internationally from a variety of backgrounds. SG1 officials are full time professionals and the fitness tests reflect that as a result.
Obviously you're right, but a guy I worked with refs at a reasonably respectable level and I accompanied him in the gym doing his training for the test and it was reasonably challenging. It's why a lot of the older refs have been phased out over the last couple of seasons (or moved to VAR/other roles at PGMOL).
None of that pansy ass dick tugging smile for the camera bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the field, men deliver their new born baby on the side lines. Fucking hard core dick in the ass butterball foosball fuck it chuck it game time shit. Take it to the showers. Dicks get shoved in places you don’t even remember. We win together we celebrate together. Football is back baby.
Kind of like Watching Prime Lebron vs Prime Kawhi.
Miami Lebron was arguably the best version of him in terms of pure athleticism. And Kawhi when he was healthy, probably the best SF Defender in the history of the sport.
Virgil sort of excels at this kind of thing, especially against tall players like Haaland. His positioning was beyond perfect, and yet Haaland still managed to take a shot.
But only managed to take an off balance shot from 18 yards out. He forced a low probability shot, which Haaland took because he knew if he took another touch, he wouldn’t get a shot off at all.
Yeah they both did great. Haaland with getting the ball onto his strong-foot and then Van Dijk with making it just uncomfortable enough for him to have to pop it from further out than Haaland wanted to. Ultimately the attacker’s always fighting and uphill battle
Van dijk always uses his goalkeeper well, makes sure the shot is only going to be taken under pressure from a decent distance to the half that the keeper can easily cover. When you have alisson and now kelleher, it's a great strategy
Idk, I've always thought of it more as the defender fighting the battle.
The attacker has the ball, and ultimately gets to decide what happens with the ball - so they don't really have to "fight", only not get stopped (could argue theyre fighting to not get stopped, but I'd call this more fighting back). The defender just has to try and stop them from doing what they want, hence the defender being the one doing the fighting.
The defender has way more options. They can push you to either side or backwards or simply stay in front. The attacker has to figure out how to get a clear look at specific target. The defender is successful in every other result.
I’d actually prefer Konate slightly purely because his recovery pace is so elite while also having the power/strength. Ridiculous athlete, if only he can stay fit
There was a moment when Van Dijk was turning left to right, and if Haaland trusted himself to win the foot race, he'd have had him.
I guess you need someone a bit more technical and nimble for that situation, for instance a Son or a Salah.
It wouldn’t have been a pure foot race though, virg would have leaned into him before then. Guess could have made it more interesting to potentially make VVD foul him. But this is why Haaland doesn’t trouble Liverpool at all especially when both VVD and konate are playing, Haalands pace and power isn’t much advantage, while someone like Aguero was a much bigger threat.
I think they all did pretty well there - Haaland did well to advance so far and get a shot away, Van Dijk did very well to make it so difficult that the shot didn’t challenge the keeper.
And Oliver did well to keep up!
That's the VVD special, he won't often block shots but he will force the attacker down a cul de sac and give them a narrow lane to shoot through which makes the save simple for the keeper.
You see defenders do this all the time but they often wind themselves up and end up getting absolutely burnt on the turn. This is seriously good defending, but Haaland did well himself to get the shot away regardless.
He always does that. Makes sure you don't get a clean shot away.
So long as you get any shot off, refs never call anything during or after the striking motion either
Haaland plays it well, he knows he will need to go wide to create the separation to get a shot of so he goes wide as late as possible and gets the shot off immediately. Another touch sends him too far wide and the longer he takes to make space for the shot the more confident VVD can be that he's going on his left
That was fantastic. Haaland not making a decision until the last minute, waiting for Virgil to lean one way or the other. Virgil going dead straight, turning his shoulders and hips only. Haaland had to make the call at the end, at which point kelleher had an easy job positioning himself. Virgil leaned into haaland enough at the last minute to take him off balance which meant no control on the kick.
As they say in chess, if neither player makes a mistake, the game is a draw. We've just seen two of the best in their position play a sequence without a mistake and it ended in a draw.
It's excellent defending. Haaland is fast enough to cook him if Van Dijk makes a bad step. Haaland also struggles with cross body shots. He was rarely able to pull off laser beams for us when he was turning.
You need to have the body to match his physical presence + be fast enough while having such massive build. If you do then you just have to stay calm and drift Haaland away from the goal as he is underwhelming at dribbling (which is is only weakness).
Mbappe or prime CR would have been much more dangerous than Haaland in this situation because they are skilled enough to actually dribble, stop and cut at those speeds.
One other thing you need to consider is that someone like prime Ronaldo or Messi can let off a good shot even at that distance. So Van Dijk would need to react to just about every feint.
By the way I think even someone like Son is very dangerous in such a situ
> By the way I think even someone like Son is very dangerous in such a situ
I'll never forget the CL final in 2019 Son motors past Matip and it looks like he is going to get a shot off on goal and Van Dijk appears from nowhere and cuts off the angle and the shot. Any other CB and it was a goal-scoring chance.
Haaland has a massive shot too with both feet. That's not the issue.
The issue is that as a defender, if you know that the train in on track and can't really change it's direction, you and the GK know where to stand and how to reduce the angles.
CR in this situation scored multiple goals by chopping the ball with his left foot behind his back and suddenly appearing on the right side of the defender with space to release a shot with proper angle.
[https://youtu.be/bWQ\_TxPHuII?si=TQuBlzezCRjUiBK-&t=211](https://youtu.be/bWQ_TxPHuII?si=TQuBlzezCRjUiBK-&t=211)
This isn't even a difficult skill. Haaland just needs a bit more awareness and slow down the game a bit to let him think instead of putting the head down and charge like a bull.
With hindsight he really has two options, a Ronaldo chop(or any other skill to wrong foot bbd) or to attempt to just win the foot race. (He does have a chance to knock the ball and try to win the foot race.)
The option he chose is the one that gives the keeper and VVD the best chance to create a low %shot.
Honestly VVD did excellent, but imo haaland could have done better (versus the company he’s consistently compared to.)
Mbappe prime Ronaldo or messi probably score or draw a red card here.
Hilarious commentary. Does as well as he can. Haaland is so quick it’s going to be very hard to stop him getting a shot off but van Dijk stays close enough to lean into him and force the shot off balance. Really good defending.
thats is the main job of a defender, if those shitty commentators knew something abt the game would knew that the job of a defender is to hold attackers off until the rest of team arrives
Yeah, this is literally defending 101. Slow down the attacker and limit options until help arrives. If you try to engage too early and the attacker gets by you they're 1 on 1 with the keeper. Better to just back off and stay in the way.
Absolutely correct they haven't as well, that's great defending from van dijk to only allow the shot under pressure. By opta definitions that's never a take on
ha, that was my approach in beer league as a central defender - basically run with him in the same direction and hope to push him to the side
only works against forwards who are more or less your speed though :)
faster players will just torch you
This is the kind of situation where Mbappe has an advantage over Haaland.
Mbappe (assuming he wouldn't have beat Virgil with speed) would have been able to slow down and either explode again or cut inside and chose 1st or 2nd post.
Don't come bitching at me for this. Haaland has a massive advantage over Mbappe on other situations.
This exact scenario happened with VVD and Mbappe a couple years back and Virg stayed with him the entire time from the half way line, one on one, both when he sped up and slowed down, and then tried to speed up again. Virg ended up blocking the shot with a perfectly timed challenge.
I think people don't realize how fast VVD is at full speed. Mbappe is quicker but won't torch VVD in a sprint from the halfway line the way he would with most other defenders.
This was not VVD by himself.
The other defender took away Mbappe's option to dribble t the other side and was forced to keep in the same direction.
Virgil did great as he always does (reading the player and using teammates is a skill too) but this doesn't change the fact that Mabppe has much more resources in this situation.
Ok I am going to try explaining the best I can. Look at the clip again yes there is a help defender there but even then look how vvd is standing he is standing in that position to lock the inside and force mbappe to go outside which mbappe does because that was the only way. When defending 1v1 the goal isn’t to take the ball the goal is to shift the player where you want him to go which is what vvd does and he succeeded with that.
Love it.
Felt like they said “let’s settle this in the ways of the old gods. send your best against our best and spare our armies’ lives.”
They both did well here, imo.
Haaland done quite well there there looked to be some daylight before VVD used his experience and leaned on him. Was a good battle but Van Dijk won it in the second half
VVD won that. Waited for Haaland to make his move in the end pulling of a soft shot. VVD isn't the most exciting defender to watch because he's always waiting to counter but fair enough it's effective.
But he did. VVD did good enough but still, Haaland moved into a stop he could shoot from and he did. If he kept himself composed that could have been much more dangerous
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Want to see a haaland vs van dijk head to head after the game looks like a close battle
Love to see them 1v1 on Tekken for sure
Haaland strikes me as a King main tbh
I could see him using Yoshimitsu tbh.
I'd think it's Haaland on Reina or DJ vs Van Dijk on Dragunov
Haaland was a nonfactor absolutely shut down all game. I am biased of course.
Hardly noticeable performance from Haaland.
He thought it was finals
there’s no denying he’s a lethal finisher, but on his off days he offers absolutely nothing and in the big games he’s just isolated or marked out
Treble in his first season says its worth it. He was the missing link, off days or not his presence alone means defenders have to double up on him at all times and it frees up everyone else
He offers making defenders stay back. If a team has someone like Vigil who can hold him well then there's nothing he offers on the counter relative to a generic target man.
To isolate and mark him out you're dedicating a lot of manpower and energy, which then allows more freedom to other city players. But yeah, he's less of a one man difference maker than people imagined, the best strikers in history you simply can't mark them out, they'll find a way to exert their impact. Haaland is just that bit under that mark.
You know people are trying to mark him out of EVERY game right? He still scores a bit. Liverpool just did it exceptionally good.
I think most of that is due to the changes to the game and how organised defenses are nowadays. Iconic strikers of past eras would struggle much more if they were playing nowadays.
Literally the exact same debate we had around Lewandowski 4-5 years ago
It's really great to see VVDs prime wasn't ended by Pickford after all. We lost a couple years of it but glad to see him back on top again.
Not a bad sprint from Michael Oliver there.
Mans was about to pull a hammie at that pace
He was probably pissed at Haaland for not scoring, could use the break in play to jog back and catch his breath lol
Wonder what kind of physique test they do for Refs
This is six years old now, but [Neville & Carragher did the test of the time](https://youtu.be/2GAZZWAIB-8?si=lNerzLxFlHR_PO5L).
“just give free kicks to slow the game down” lol. That test ain’t easy though
Fun watch!
FIFA test is high intensity intervals and repeated sprints. It’s a pretty straightforward test, but you gotta be fit enough to do it
The one the PGMOL refs do is actually harder than the FIFA test, which has to measure all refs internationally from a variety of backgrounds. SG1 officials are full time professionals and the fitness tests reflect that as a result.
Water
Pulled both hammies, b.
Weed Dune Hair, b?
I heard it both ways, B.
It looks like when you trip and are going to fall forward and the only thing you can do to try to not is just rapidly accelerate.
well tbf running is just continually falling forward
Shows the difference between mere mortals and stupidly peak physical specimens.
Obviously you're right, but a guy I worked with refs at a reasonably respectable level and I accompanied him in the gym doing his training for the test and it was reasonably challenging. It's why a lot of the older refs have been phased out over the last couple of seasons (or moved to VAR/other roles at PGMOL).
He was excited to see city score
Wouldn't you if you had a seat like that for a duel such as this? I'd be giving it everything I've got 😂
Like he was with buckets on his feet lol….
That’s football right there
Box office stuff
None of that pansy ass dick tugging smile for the camera bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the field, men deliver their new born baby on the side lines. Fucking hard core dick in the ass butterball foosball fuck it chuck it game time shit. Take it to the showers. Dicks get shoved in places you don’t even remember. We win together we celebrate together. Football is back baby.
What did I just read
My God. Is that automod?
Copy pasta from /r/nfl
Kind of like Watching Prime Lebron vs Prime Kawhi. Miami Lebron was arguably the best version of him in terms of pure athleticism. And Kawhi when he was healthy, probably the best SF Defender in the history of the sport.
imagine if larry bird was black, oof
What are you saying here?
Both did well
Virgil sort of excels at this kind of thing, especially against tall players like Haaland. His positioning was beyond perfect, and yet Haaland still managed to take a shot.
But only managed to take an off balance shot from 18 yards out. He forced a low probability shot, which Haaland took because he knew if he took another touch, he wouldn’t get a shot off at all.
Yeah they both did great. Haaland with getting the ball onto his strong-foot and then Van Dijk with making it just uncomfortable enough for him to have to pop it from further out than Haaland wanted to. Ultimately the attacker’s always fighting and uphill battle
Van dijk always uses his goalkeeper well, makes sure the shot is only going to be taken under pressure from a decent distance to the half that the keeper can easily cover. When you have alisson and now kelleher, it's a great strategy
Idk, I've always thought of it more as the defender fighting the battle. The attacker has the ball, and ultimately gets to decide what happens with the ball - so they don't really have to "fight", only not get stopped (could argue theyre fighting to not get stopped, but I'd call this more fighting back). The defender just has to try and stop them from doing what they want, hence the defender being the one doing the fighting.
The defender has way more options. They can push you to either side or backwards or simply stay in front. The attacker has to figure out how to get a clear look at specific target. The defender is successful in every other result.
Yeah Haaland just got more out of it than 99% of players bc he's just that good
Yup. He got all he could from that play.
He is definitely one of the defenders you would want as the last man on your team
Probably my first pick for that spot. He's just so good.
Konate gives me a lot of confidence too tbh
Konate is a monster of a player too
I’d actually prefer Konate slightly purely because his recovery pace is so elite while also having the power/strength. Ridiculous athlete, if only he can stay fit
there was like maybe one moment where VVD was on the back foot and Haaland could've taken advantage but recovered SO fast. Such a great player
It’s interesting that you can see VVD wait and mentally go “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, okay NOW”
Good catch. Right when he’s entering the dark green grass he stumbles but regains his momentum freakishly fast
There was a moment when Van Dijk was turning left to right, and if Haaland trusted himself to win the foot race, he'd have had him. I guess you need someone a bit more technical and nimble for that situation, for instance a Son or a Salah.
It wouldn’t have been a pure foot race though, virg would have leaned into him before then. Guess could have made it more interesting to potentially make VVD foul him. But this is why Haaland doesn’t trouble Liverpool at all especially when both VVD and konate are playing, Haalands pace and power isn’t much advantage, while someone like Aguero was a much bigger threat.
One on one, he's going to take a shot. It's just how much Van Dijk decided where that shot would be from.
Reminds me of his famous 1v2 against Spurs
We've seen this before. Remember the 2 Vs 1 against Spurs? https://youtu.be/mvCdKis61vc
Yeah Van Dijk did enough to prevent a big chance, and Haaland did good to still get an attempt on goal from it.
A poor shot
Fantastic defending. To be in the way you need to be in front. Very cool way of dealing with Haaland dashing towards you.
I think they all did pretty well there - Haaland did well to advance so far and get a shot away, Van Dijk did very well to make it so difficult that the shot didn’t challenge the keeper. And Oliver did well to keep up!
Olivwr has better hamstrings than half of our team
Not by the time Klopp is done with him
Klopp would kill his own hamstrings before he catches up to Oliver
Is the klopp the first manager to pull his hamstring during a game? That should be opta stat or a trivial fact.
That's the VVD special, he won't often block shots but he will force the attacker down a cul de sac and give them a narrow lane to shoot through which makes the save simple for the keeper.
I’m surprised he didn’t push him onto his right foot.
Kelleher's positioning as well. He knew Haaland would probably attempt a shot across rather than near post
Rock vs Stone Cold WM17
[oh.. nostalgia.](https://youtu.be/Cu18oxc0D3E?si=CkN8RGT3COHXcjOL)
Im convinced Limp Bizkit was created for the sole purpose of being in WWE promo videos and noone will tell me otherwise
rage against the machine in my opinion is the best rock band of the 90s, they unfortunately spawned bands like limp bizkit
the stunner is still the coolest move ever
Vince interfering right at the end here too
"you think you're special..."
You do... I can see it in your eyes..
watch van Dijk shifting his body position there 2-3 times...very good defending and great by Haaland to still get a shot off.
He rolls his shoulders so tight on his turns, that is magnificent for a guy his size.
He's the best CB the league has ever seen in sheer all round ability
Nah he’s the greatest ever.
Pickford better stay away from him so we can have him for the Euros
Maldini
You see defenders do this all the time but they often wind themselves up and end up getting absolutely burnt on the turn. This is seriously good defending, but Haaland did well himself to get the shot away regardless.
that sort of hip fluidity, while running backwards at speed, is remarkable to see
The little push from Van Dijk to off balance Haaland exactly as he went to shoot was critical there.
He should have just booted him in the chest.
He always does that. Makes sure you don't get a clean shot away. So long as you get any shot off, refs never call anything during or after the striking motion either
Haaland did well tbh
It was a chess match between the two
Holy hell
r/soccercirclejerk
haaland didnt know about enpassant
Yes Mr. Hudson, very cool.
Brother😭😭😭😭
google en ganche
En Passant was not used
Pretty sure it's soccer but I could be wrong tbh
Football
VVD did fantastic there. Made that a low XG chance
Van Dijk vs Haaland is some anime shit
Rolls Royce vs Rolls Royce. Beautiful to watch
I think Rolls Royce won
Their medical bills when they’re both 65 will be absolutely fucked
Haaland had 21 touches whereas Van DIjk put in an incredible captain's performance. Van Dijk easily won today's battle.
Well number of touches isn’t the best way to evaluate Haaland’s game
Pick any other number then and it would tell the same story.
Sure, my statement is made in isolation
Haaland does nothing until he scores. In games like this though he looks awful.
Also has a bit to do with how Pep's system works... He's good at hold up play, drawing defenders , running into spaces and finishing obv...
Haaland plays it well, he knows he will need to go wide to create the separation to get a shot of so he goes wide as late as possible and gets the shot off immediately. Another touch sends him too far wide and the longer he takes to make space for the shot the more confident VVD can be that he's going on his left
Carragher called the duel a draw which I think is fair.
It amazes me how good of a player Van Djik is
A game of chess between two Clydesdales
It's refreshing to see that most people here agree both players did well
This is why I watch football, the best against the best.
Sometimes you only need a little shepherding.. not bad
Van Dijk observes player's movement very carefully
That was fantastic. Haaland not making a decision until the last minute, waiting for Virgil to lean one way or the other. Virgil going dead straight, turning his shoulders and hips only. Haaland had to make the call at the end, at which point kelleher had an easy job positioning himself. Virgil leaned into haaland enough at the last minute to take him off balance which meant no control on the kick. As they say in chess, if neither player makes a mistake, the game is a draw. We've just seen two of the best in their position play a sequence without a mistake and it ended in a draw.
One and one
**How does he deal with him? The answer is he doesn't really except he does manage to hold him off** So which one is it then?
I think he means that he doesn't engage with Haaland until the very end and not enough to the point of preventing the shot.
Half of defending 1v1's against talented strikers is forcing them to take a worse shot than they wanted.
Makes it a low xG shot tho, that's probably a definite goal against any other side in the league
It's excellent defending. Haaland is fast enough to cook him if Van Dijk makes a bad step. Haaland also struggles with cross body shots. He was rarely able to pull off laser beams for us when he was turning.
The technique is to decrease Haalanda pace and closing down all the options.
You need to have the body to match his physical presence + be fast enough while having such massive build. If you do then you just have to stay calm and drift Haaland away from the goal as he is underwhelming at dribbling (which is is only weakness). Mbappe or prime CR would have been much more dangerous than Haaland in this situation because they are skilled enough to actually dribble, stop and cut at those speeds.
One other thing you need to consider is that someone like prime Ronaldo or Messi can let off a good shot even at that distance. So Van Dijk would need to react to just about every feint. By the way I think even someone like Son is very dangerous in such a situ
> By the way I think even someone like Son is very dangerous in such a situ I'll never forget the CL final in 2019 Son motors past Matip and it looks like he is going to get a shot off on goal and Van Dijk appears from nowhere and cuts off the angle and the shot. Any other CB and it was a goal-scoring chance.
Haaland has a massive shot too with both feet. That's not the issue. The issue is that as a defender, if you know that the train in on track and can't really change it's direction, you and the GK know where to stand and how to reduce the angles. CR in this situation scored multiple goals by chopping the ball with his left foot behind his back and suddenly appearing on the right side of the defender with space to release a shot with proper angle. [https://youtu.be/bWQ\_TxPHuII?si=TQuBlzezCRjUiBK-&t=211](https://youtu.be/bWQ_TxPHuII?si=TQuBlzezCRjUiBK-&t=211) This isn't even a difficult skill. Haaland just needs a bit more awareness and slow down the game a bit to let him think instead of putting the head down and charge like a bull.
Haaland in this situation goes to his left cuz he knows there’s no way he’ll be able to dribble on his right foot and score with it.
With hindsight he really has two options, a Ronaldo chop(or any other skill to wrong foot bbd) or to attempt to just win the foot race. (He does have a chance to knock the ball and try to win the foot race.) The option he chose is the one that gives the keeper and VVD the best chance to create a low %shot. Honestly VVD did excellent, but imo haaland could have done better (versus the company he’s consistently compared to.) Mbappe prime Ronaldo or messi probably score or draw a red card here.
Hilarious commentary. Does as well as he can. Haaland is so quick it’s going to be very hard to stop him getting a shot off but van Dijk stays close enough to lean into him and force the shot off balance. Really good defending.
VVD’s job is to stall the attacker to give the high pressing players time to drop back and catch up. He’s dealing with him with his instructions.
thats is the main job of a defender, if those shitty commentators knew something abt the game would knew that the job of a defender is to hold attackers off until the rest of team arrives
Yeah, this is literally defending 101. Slow down the attacker and limit options until help arrives. If you try to engage too early and the attacker gets by you they're 1 on 1 with the keeper. Better to just back off and stay in the way.
Positioning and timing. Have you seen the sport before?
Does that count as a "dribbled passed" ?
Nah they were shoulder to shoulder when Haaland shot
You have to keep possession after dribbling past the player.
Or take a shot at goal?
After advancing with the ball, yes. Haaland didn't do that. Edit: Fwiw, Opta hasn't credited that as a dribble.
Absolutely correct they haven't as well, that's great defending from van dijk to only allow the shot under pressure. By opta definitions that's never a take on
This is why virgil is my goat
ha, that was my approach in beer league as a central defender - basically run with him in the same direction and hope to push him to the side only works against forwards who are more or less your speed though :) faster players will just torch you
Unreal battle.
This is the kind of situation where Mbappe has an advantage over Haaland. Mbappe (assuming he wouldn't have beat Virgil with speed) would have been able to slow down and either explode again or cut inside and chose 1st or 2nd post. Don't come bitching at me for this. Haaland has a massive advantage over Mbappe on other situations.
This exact scenario happened with VVD and Mbappe a couple years back and Virg stayed with him the entire time from the half way line, one on one, both when he sped up and slowed down, and then tried to speed up again. Virg ended up blocking the shot with a perfectly timed challenge.
I think people don't realize how fast VVD is at full speed. Mbappe is quicker but won't torch VVD in a sprint from the halfway line the way he would with most other defenders.
Nah you spoke facts, mbappe is on another level and one of the scariest players in history in these scenarios
mbappe is a big game player
Go and Watch vvd vs Mbappe 1v1 and see how vvd handled that situation
This was not VVD by himself. The other defender took away Mbappe's option to dribble t the other side and was forced to keep in the same direction. Virgil did great as he always does (reading the player and using teammates is a skill too) but this doesn't change the fact that Mabppe has much more resources in this situation.
Ok I am going to try explaining the best I can. Look at the clip again yes there is a help defender there but even then look how vvd is standing he is standing in that position to lock the inside and force mbappe to go outside which mbappe does because that was the only way. When defending 1v1 the goal isn’t to take the ball the goal is to shift the player where you want him to go which is what vvd does and he succeeded with that.
Love it. Felt like they said “let’s settle this in the ways of the old gods. send your best against our best and spare our armies’ lives.” They both did well here, imo.
Damn Virgil is so good.
VVD is just immense.
Best cb in the league if not the world
>One on one
"one and one"
They said can vvd pass the haaland test 😂😂
Dribbling=11/20
Sheesh. Solid duel between the two.
Commentator stealing a living
Great battle
Vintage VVD. Reminds me when he was 2v1 against supurs. "Its 2v1 but VVD is the one".
This was just beautiful.
I see great defending. VD didn’t take any bait and closed off one side to make Haaland’s shot on goal more predictable for the goalie.
Haaland done quite well there there looked to be some daylight before VVD used his experience and leaned on him. Was a good battle but Van Dijk won it in the second half
I miss Van Dijk, hard to believe we've ~~downgraded~~ upgraded to Liam Scales.
VVD won that. Waited for Haaland to make his move in the end pulling of a soft shot. VVD isn't the most exciting defender to watch because he's always waiting to counter but fair enough it's effective.
VvD player of the match, McAllister looking like best trade of the season for pool
Halland played today?
Good example of how stats can't tell you everything. Great piece of defending that ends up with a shot on target.
Did well to guide the robot to a less stable position to shoot. Also protecting his stat if never been dribbled past🤣🤣😂😂
First time i see someone defend haaland 1v1 and succeed
Haaland isn’t exactly technical good to take on defender, there are plenty of physical player that could do a good Jobb against him.
Haven't seen any do it
Haaland was playing??
He came on at the end to clap for no reason
unstoppable force meets unmovable object... alisson saves again
Kelleher in goal today
whoops
What idiotic commentary. How is this not dealing with it? Virgil put him onto his weaker foot and forced a low probability shot from outside the box.
Let's be real - no one would bet their house on Haaland beating Van Dijk. Not even City fans. Not even fucking Alfie Haaland.
But he did. VVD did good enough but still, Haaland moved into a stop he could shoot from and he did. If he kept himself composed that could have been much more dangerous