The Moment Soccer’s Best Forward Came Face to Face With Its Best Defender

The perfect striker within the Premier League as opposed to the most productive defender within the Premier League in a one-on-one showdown with hundreds of thousands of other people gazing internationally?

Liverpool vs Manchester City had a ways larger issues at stake on Sunday (it completed 1-1 for the ones of you who live to tell the tale Mars) however the ones few seconds when Erling Haaland took on Virgil van Dijk have been explosive and thrilling. 

Two masters in their artwork had nearly 3,500 sq. metres of hallowed Anfield turf to themselves. 

Haaland thundered against objective, dancing across the ball with protracted step-overs and feints, determined to tempt a problem from the sport’s maximum unflappable centre-half. But the Dutchman resisted, back-tracking against his personal objective, and even though he in the long run may no longer forestall Haaland from slipping away and taking at the shot, it was once an effort very easily amassed by way of his goalkeeper.

Fantastic protecting, or a slice of success? The Athletic breaks it down, with the assistance of former Premier League strikers and centre-backs.

The Premier League identify race on The Athletic…

So, the ball breaks, and also you’re staring down a unmarried defender, with the liberty of the pitch to paintings with. What goes via your head?

“Well, you’re weighing up who you’re up against”, the Premier League’s all-time most sensible goalscorer Alan Shearer tells The Athletic. “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 answer is to unsettle Van Dijk, to throw him off steadiness with a sequence of twisting dummies and drives. During a five-second stampede, the Norwegian throws in 3 frame feints, two adjustments of course and one devastating burst of tempo to in any case break free from his defender’s snatch.

Haaland’s first transfer is to dart onto his proper foot; that is around the defender’s frame and clear of the place Van Dijk is attempting to turn him, however onto his weaker foot.

Note Van Dijk’s frame form — side-on and crouched low, ready to shift his frame weight if required. That stance, in step with former Ivory Coast centre-back Sol Bamba, is the most important to the struggle.

“Usually, if I was coaching a young defender, I would not tell them to turn their back to the ball so much. But Van Dijk never loses sight of where Haaland is — he is low on his knees and side-on, which means he is prepared to spring in any direction to follow his run.”

Seconds later, and Haaland has modified tack as soon as once more.

“What he’s trying to do is go left, go right, go left, go right, and then try to get Virgil off balance to gain control of the duel. But the defender doesn’t dive in, he stands up the whole way,” says Shearer.

It is a transfer for which Van Dijk has turn into famend throughout his imperious spell on the center of Liverpool’s defence, famously warding Tottenham’s Moussa Sissoko onto his left foot throughout a an identical damage again in 2019.

Statistically, that presentations via with the ‘true’ tackles metric, which mixes tackles gained and misplaced, in addition to fouls dedicated whilst making an attempt a take on, to measure how continuously a participant appears to “stick a foot in”. Over the final 5 seasons, Van Dijk averages simply 2.2 take on makes an attempt in keeping with sport, however crucially, his luck charge is up at an excessively prime 61 in keeping with cent.

“He never dives in and that’s an art”, says Bamba. “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. Van Dijk is clever, plays with his head and reads the game really well.”

The relentless Haaland continues to curve and switch even because the areas proceed to be close down.

Having already became Van Dijk round two times, the striker vegetation his proper foot as though he’s about to pull the ball over together with his left, however as an alternative geese to the other facet and continues onto his more potent foot.

Here we will see the sophisticated transfer in 3 frames, as Haaland nudges the ball beneath Van Dijk’s trailing boot and powers against the penalty house.

The ensuing shot, then again, is vulnerable, and Shearer places that all the way down to the defensive force.

“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 saved with regards to Haaland all over, the defender even manages to lean into the striker simply as he’s lining up his shot.

Off steadiness, compelled broad, and together with his angles narrowed down, affected person defensive play and loyal consideration to the ball have minimised the likelihood of the arena’s maximum deadly striker getting a blank shot away, an effort valued at 0.10 anticipated targets by way of Opta, necessarily suggesting a mean participant would have a ten in keeping with cent probability of scoring. Not a foul consequence from an intimidating one-v-one.

“He makes it so uncomfortable for him,” says Bamba, “He is so close to him for 40 metres, and forces him into a difficult shot.”

“I would’ve fancied it in my heyday, yeah!” chuckled Shearer, requested if he would have loved any such showdown in an enormous sport corresponding to this. You can’t begrudge the boldness from a person with 260 Premier League targets.

But there aren’t many avid gamers in global soccer who can reliably beat Van Dijk in a one-v-one, as his newest titanic tussle confirmed.

“He would have believed in himself in that situation, Haaland, but it just didn’t happen”, mentioned Shearer, “and that was more through really, really good defending than it was poor attacking play.”

Let’s hope we get a re-run once more quickly.

(Top picture: Premier League)