Practicing together every day, this defender is the secret of the success of Virgil Van Dijk

Conor Masterson admitted that he was lucky enough to train with Virgil Van Dijk, because he finally discovered the secret of the success of the Liverpool defender.

Van Dijk already attracted attention while still playing at Southampton. This is what made Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City run to capture his signature.

In the end, Liverpool won the hunt for the Dutch defender. Since his arrival at Anfield in 2018, Van Dijk has become the first defender in the world.

So far, he has managed to help Liverpool win two championship trophies. He also won the Premier League Player of the Year and the UEFA Player of the Year award.


Masterson completed 18 months of training at Van Dijk in Liverpool, before finally moving to QPR last summer. Therefore he is very familiar with the quality of the 28-year-old defender.

"Virgil van Dijk is one of the best players in the world," Masterson told Liverpool Echo.

The Republic of Ireland player claimed to have the opportunity to train with Van Dijk and other Liverpool defenders. Because he can absorb a lot of knowledge from these seniors.

"We learned a lot from him and there is no shame in saying that I cannot join the team because of him because he is a leading player." "I just trained with him and with Joel Matip, Joe Gomez and Dejan Lovren, who are also top players, you just learned a lot," he exclaimed.

"You improve naturally and you can start pushing them, and they see you getting better, and that's how it works, Liverpool players like that teach me to defend, which will make me useful for QPR," he said.

Masterson then explained the secret he revealed at the Van Dijk match. He explained that there are small things that are not taken into account by many people, but that makes the former Celtic defender able to appear.

"You learn a lot from Virgil van Dijk and the way he does things - these are small things - things that people will not pay attention to in the field, but because you practice with him day after day, you learn these things and you say to yourself, "Ah, that's what he did, that's what he did." Make it easy, "he said.

"It's all in your head, and you get it back when you start practicing with them, and you learn more because people realize what they are doing at the time, for example, balloons being thrown far ahead," The way he hits people in the air and makes it easy because he has a head start, he always jumps before, he holds the player who is waiting to jump. ", he explained.
"Little things like that that you wouldn't know if you weren't around every day at the training ground, that's what makes world-class players and, as they say," Training makes someone perfect, "Masterson said.

Virgil Van Dijk is currently nominated for the 2019 FIFA Men's Best Player Award with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Liverpool's third captain is also considered worthy of winning the Ballon d'Or trophy.

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