Strong, agile, powerful, stubborn and spirited defender - we'll never run out of the epithets describing Big Virg, who has been pushing the Reds for the PL win since his very arrival from Southampton.
He has already become of the biggest if not the biggest player for Liverpool and the Netherlands, but he prefers to lead secretive and calm life in his own admission:
"I keep a very small circle around me. The bigger you get as a player, the bigger the spotlight. A lot of people you met once or twice want to come into your life again. I have a fantastic wife who can see through those things as well."
"My family, my wife and my kids are the most important thing. I've had many tough times over the years but coming home and seeing my kids smiling and my wife, everyone is healthy, then nothing matters to me in the world. That's the driving force for me. That's what I do it all for."
But who's Van Dijk's wife and how the two came to meet each other?
Rike Nooitgedagt, Van Dijk's wife
• The duo have known each other since Van Dijk's days at Groningen, his first club
• She worked as a fashion sales manager and abandoned her job in 2013 to support Big Virg in his quest with Celtic
• Virg and Rike share four-year-old daughter Nila together - her birth was quite an eventful process as Big Virg earned his first NT call-up when her wife was due to give birth in September
• The pair decided to arrange for the induced birth and have a baby girl, Nila
Things never have been easy for our star player, who remembers how difficult it was for him to play football at a tender age of 16:
"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 centimeters."
"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 center-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."
To top it all off Virg had to go through a tragedy of his own - his mom and dad split up when Van Dijk was 12 - a thing Virgil will never forgive his father Ron van Dijk for. Thanks to his mother, Hellen van Dijk Virgil grew into a complete person both on and off the pitch.
Hellen van Dijk
• Surinamese by nationality
• Had a full-time job and three kids to look after having divorced Ron van Dijk
• Never had a minute for herself, having to work, cook and tend for the kids
• Helped Big Virg to go through surgery on appendicitis and a lengthy recovery
Here's how Fo Sieeuw, VVD's uncle remembers the unpleasant situation:
“Ron is a nice guy but you need to be more than that to be a good father. You have to be there for your children.
“Ron married again and his new wife was very domineering so he didn’t see his kids much."
“I feel for Virgil, it’s like he’s been caught in the middle.”
Virgil did open up on the unpleasantries of his childhood life once:
“I first lived with him [dad] for a while and after that I chose to go back with my mother."
“At that time my brother and sister already lived with her. Then I broke all contact with my dad."
Well, that explains why Virgil prefers to play with his name on the jersey as Ron van Dijk is said to have tried contacting Big Virg several times after our No.4 became famous defender - to no avail, as Virgil has always been known for being faithful to his family of which Liverpool are an integral part now.
