Dissecting Haaland vs Van Dijk: When the league’s best striker took on its best defender

The best striker in the Premier League versus the best defender in the Premier League in a one-on-one showdown with millions of people watching across the world? “If, for argument’s sake, you’re up against a guy who you know is not as quick, then the obvious thing you’re going to do is knock it and run it.” “But he knows he isn’t going to do that to Virgil, because the Liverpool defender is one of the few people who can keep up with Haaland — even running backwards.” The solution is to unsettle Van Dijk, to throw him off balance with a series of twisting dummies and drives. Haaland’s first move is to dart onto his right foot; this is across the defender’s body and away from where Van Dijk is trying to show him, but onto his weaker foot. “It is so easy to be tempted to go in for the tackle, but if you dive in, someone like Haaland is just going to push the ball past you and beat you.” “If it was me, I probably would have committed,” Bamba continues, “Neil Warnock used to say to us, ‘If the ball passes, the striker doesn’t!’.” “But it takes real discipline to back off like that. “Because he hadn’t had much joy in going left and right, Haaland is thinking, ‘Right, I’m going to run out of time in a minute, so I have to get my shot away pretty quickly’.” “In reality, he would have preferred to be another three or four yards closer, so that’s part of Van Dijk doing his job and making the forward’s mind up to take the shot where he has done” Having kept close to Haaland all the way through, the defender even manages to lean into the striker just as he is lining up his shot.