Virgil van Dijk plays football so effortlessly. Not literally, of course, because the Liverpool star no doubt puts in the hard yards and then some, but there’s just something about the way in which he glides around the pitch that makes it look as though he’s not even breaking a sweat.
It’s not just the Dutchman’s flowing locks that look majestic, but also each slide-tackle, header, sprint and – perhaps most impressively of all – pass that he plays.
The days of centre-backs simply being big old lumps who throw their head in front of everything and cannon the ball into Row Z every 10 seconds is long gone.
In are the days of ball-playing defenders who have it in their arsenal to sprint like Thierry Henry, read the play like Andrea Pirlo and pass the ball like Steven Gerrard.