Former Liverpool defender Sepp van den Berg has credited Virgil van Dijk with helping him through his loneliness off the pitch upon moving to England.
There has a rich Dutch heritage through Liverpool’s modern era, not least now with Arne Slot in the dugout and Van Dijk his captain.
In total 12 players from the Netherlands have represented the first team – from Erik Meijer and Sander Westerveld through to Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo – with Van den Berg one of those, with four appearances.
The 23-year-old left for Brentford in the summer and is now a regular for Saturday’s opponents, but he was long considered a future starter for Liverpool.
Speaking ahead of the weekend’s clash, however, Van den Berg revealed the difficulties he faced after joining from PEC Zwolle in 2019.
“I lived alone, I had no one to talk to. That was hard for me,” he told Brentford‘s official website.
“I struggled with that quite a lot because I was used to being surrounded by a big family where there’s a lot going on and there was always lots of people around me.
“I didn’t talk to anyone about my feelings at the start, which made things really hard. I was in my own head, coming home and staring at the walls with nothing to do.
“I would just go home after training, I didn’t do anything with any of my team-mates, which obviously led to me struggling to make new friends.”
It is a frank admission from Van den Berg who, while accepting that he is “very privileged,” insisted the life of a footballer is “not always as easy as it looks.”
Having left the Netherlands for England as a 17-year-old, the lofty defender clearly found it hard to fit in – particularly off the pitch.
But as he continued his interview, he revealed how Van Dijk helped him through his loneliness and any homesickness.
“Virgil van Dijk made me feel really welcome,” Van den Berg said.
“I remember, on my first day, he said to the kit man, ‘make sure his place in the dressing room is next to mine’, and it was those small things that made me feel more at home.
“From a footballing perspective, it was just watching him in training and in matches, he was the best defender in the world at that stage…those moments will always stay with me.
“Watching what he does, how he plays, how he speaks, how he leads the team – to see that up close was priceless.”
Van Dijk may not have been captain at the time – in fact, he was only 18 months into his time at the club himself – but that gesture to his fellow Dutchman showed the qualities needed to take the armband.
Liverpool had hoped to keep Van den Berg as part of Slot’s squad this season but his desire for regular first-team football forced a move – and so far this term he has started 20 of his 21 games for Brentford, with another surely to come on Saturday.
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