The best striker in the Premier League going one-on-one with the best defender in the Premier League in front of millions of people around the world watching?
Liverpool faced a greater threat against Manchester City on Sunday (the final score was 1-1 for those of you living on Mars), but those few seconds Erling Haaland’s match against Virgil van Dijk was explosive and exciting.
The two artistic masters have exclusive use of nearly 3,500 square meters of Anfield’s sacred lawn.
Haaland thundered towards goal, dancing around the ball with long strides and feints, desperately trying to draw the challenge from the most composed centre-back in the game. But the Dutchman fought hard and dropped back into his own goal, and although he was ultimately unable to stop Haaland’s shot, it was easily collected by his keeper.
Excellent defense, or luck? Competitor That was broken with the help of a former Premier League striker and centre-back.
Premier League title race Competitor…
So, the ball is broken and you can target a defender and have free reign down the field. What’s going on in your head?
‘Well, you’re weighing up who you’re up against,’ says Premier League all-time top scorer Alan Shearer Athletic team. “For argument’s sake, if you’re facing someone who you know isn’t that fast, the obvious thing to do is knock it down and run it. “
“But he knew he wouldn’t do that to Virgil because the Liverpool defender is one of the few who can keep up with Haaland — Even backwards. “
The solution is to unsettle Van Dijk, throwing him off balance through a series of twisting dummies and breaks. In a five-second stomp, the Norwegian used three body feints, two changes of direction and a devastating acceleration to finally escape his defender’s grasp.
Haaland’s first move is a lunge with his right foot; this is over the defender’s body, away from where Van Dijk is trying to show him, but on his weaker foot.
Pay attention to Van Dijk’s body type – lie on his side and crouch low, being able to shift his weight if necessary. That gesture, According to former Ivorian centre-back Saul Bamba, this will be crucial in this battle.
“Normally, if I coach a young defender, I don’t tell them too much with their back to the ball. But Van Dijk never forgets where Haaland was – he was on his knees, sideways. Ground, which means he’s ready to jump in any direction to follow his run.”
Seconds later, Haaland changed tactics again.
“All he was trying to do was go left, go right, go left, go right and then try to take Virgil off balance to control the duel. But the defender didn’t pounce, he stayed on his feet,” Shearer said. explain.
Van Dijk became famous for this move during his imperious days at the heart of Liverpool’s defence, denying Tottenham Hotspur’s Moussa Sissoko on his left foot during a similar breakaway in 2019.
Statistically, this is shown through the ‘real’ tackles metric, which combines tackles won and lost, as well as the number of fouls committed while attempting a tackle, to measure how often a player ‘steps in’. Over the past five seasons, Van Dijk has averaged just 2.2 tackle attempts per game, but most importantly, he has a success rate of 61%.
“He never engages, it’s an art,” Bamba said. “It’s easy to be tempted to tackle, but if you dive in, someone like Haaland will push the ball past you and beat you.”
“If it were me, I would probably commit,” Bamba continued, “Neil Warnock once said to us, ‘If the ball is passed, the striker won’t!’.”
“But it takes real discipline to back off like that. Van Dijk is smart, plays with his head and reads the game very well.”
Although space continued to be closed, the ruthless Haaland continued to turn things around.
The striker had twice turned on Van Dijk, planted himself on his right foot and appeared to drag the ball over with his left foot, but instead ducked to the other side and continued to use his stronger foot.
Here we can see a subtle movement three frames in as Haaland pushes the ball under Van Dijk’s back boot into the box.
However, the final shot was weak, which Shearer attributed to defensive pressure.
“Because he doesn’t have a lot of fun turning left and right, so Haaland is thinking, ‘OK, I don’t have time in a minute, so I have to shoot as quickly as possible’.”
“In fact, he would have preferred to go three or four yards closer, so that’s part of Van Dijk’s job of giving the striker the determination to shoot where he’s already done.”
The defender stayed close to Haaland throughout and even managed to get closer to the striker as he prepared to shoot.
Losing balance, being forced off goal, narrowing angles, patient defending and a constant focus on the ball have minimized the chances of a clean shot from the world’s most lethal striker, with Opta valuing the effort at 0.10 expected Goals, essentially indicate that the average player has a 10% chance of scoring. The intimidating one-on-one turned out okay.
“He made him very uncomfortable,” Bamba said. “He was so close 40 meters to him and forced him to make difficult shots.”
“I would have thought of it in my heyday, yes!” Shearer asked with a smile whether he would have enjoyed such a showdown in such a big game. You can’t begrudge the confidence of a man who has 260 Premier League goals to his name.
But there aren’t many players in world football who can reliably beat Van Dijk in a one-on-one matchup, as his recent huge tussle showed.
“Haaland, he would have believed in himself in that situation, but that didn’t happen,” Shearer said. “It was more through very, very good defense than a bad attacking performance.”
Hopefully we’ll get another replay soon.
(Above: Premier League)
