VIRGIL van Dijk was in the Celtic team on the day that Kieran Tierney made his debut in senior football as a nervous teenager and sensed straight away that he was destined to cope with the step up in standard and then some.
The promising young left back came on as a late substitute for Emilio Izaguirre in a Ladbrokes Premiership game against Dundee at Dens Park towards the end of the 2014/15 season and impressed onlookers, including his team mate, as he helped the visitors record a 2-1 triumph.
His rise to prominence since has been nothing short of meteoric; he has established himself as a first team regular at the Parkhead club, won numerous trophies and individual awards and established himself in the Scotland national team as well.
READ MORE:
The Liverpool centre half has no doubts that Tierney can succeed in the Premier League in England if Arsenal finally meet his £25 million asking price in the coming days.
Most players who move to England from Celtic or Rangers go to mid-table top flight clubs or even those at the bottom end of the division due to the low regard that the Premiership is held in down south.
Van Dijk, like Victor Wanyama before him and Stuart Armstrong after him, joined Southampton, for a £13 million transfer fee, in 2015 and was only snapped up by Liverpool for £75 million, a world record for a defender, in 2017.
READ MORE:
Napoli boss Carlo Ancelotti says Celtic's Kieran Tierney is a "really good player"
If Tierney joins the Emirates Stadium club, who reached the Europa League final last season and just missed out on a top four place in the Premier League table and a Champions League spot, it will buck that trend. Van Dijk, though, is confident Tierney can cope.
“It is not an easy step to make and you have to play well to do it,” the Dutch defender, who returned to this country briefly for a pre-season friendly against Napoli at Murrayfield on Sunday, said. “But he has the qualities.”
READ MORE:
Champions League winners slump to heavy defeat at Murrayfield
The last time that Van Dijk had played in Scotland in a friendly international with the Netherlands at Pittodrie back in 2017 he faced his former team mate Tierney, who captained his country. He was well aware of his opponent's strengths that evening.
“Kieran made his debut against Dundee when I was at Celtic,” he said. “I scored a free-kick up there and then he came on and helped us get the win. You could tell he was a good player who would do well.
“I enjoyed being back on Sunday a lot. It is always great to be in Scotland. The last time I was here it was with my national team when we played Scotland at Pittodrie. It has been a while. It has always been good to play here.”
Van Dijk was watched from the stands at Murrayfield by his former Celtic team mate Scott Brown but revealed he hadn’t caught up with his old captain afterwards. “I didn’t realise Scott was there,” he said. “He should have texted me! I don’t think he has my number! He’s a great guy.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here