Virgil van Dijk arrives at the World Cup carrying a workload that tells its own story. He has played 4,941 minutes for Liverpool this season and 810 for the Netherlands, and he could push beyond the 6,000-minute barrier against Tunisia in the last group game before he turns 35 before the quarter-finals.
That is why he remains such a focal point for the Netherlands. He was central to the team’s run to the last eight of the 2022 tournament, when Argentina beat them on penalties after a draw that acquired the tag of the battle of Lusail, and his final touch of that competition was a saved penalty. Van Dijk and Lionel Messi took the first kicks for their countries in that shootout, while Van Dijk also risked a red card with a forceful chest barge on Leandro Paredes. The Netherlands had been ranked among potential World Cup winners, and the exit left a hard reminder of how much of their fate still ran through their captain.
There is a reason the burden keeps landing on him even as signs point to a player whose powers may be waning. Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate are no longer alongside him at Liverpool, and Van Dijk had wanted them to stay. Jurrien Timber was expected to be his probable partner for the Netherlands until injury ruled him out of the World Cup. That leaves the Dutch leaning on a defender who was once left out of their 2014 squad, when he was approaching 23 and ranked behind Terence Kongolo, only now he is the one they cannot easily replace.
The contradiction is plain enough. Van Dijk is being asked to do less and more at once: conserve enough for a tournament run, yet remain the one man the Netherlands trust in the moments that define it. If he does cross 6,000 minutes against Tunisia, it will not just be a number. It will be a sign that the Netherlands still see him as the player who can carry them through the hardest minutes, even if the clock is already ticking toward the quarter-finals.
