-Credit:2025 Getty Images
Former Liverpool defender Sepp van den Berg has revealed how compatriot Virgil van Dijk went out of his way to make him feel welcome after he moved to Anfield in 2019.
Van den Berg joined Liverpool as a highly rated teenager, joining from PEC Zwolle, but after the excitement of joining one of the world’s biggest clubs wore off, the Dutchman started to struggle mentally as he failed to make any inroads into the first-team set-up.
“At first, I was training with the first team and everything was amazing, it couldn’t get any better,” Van den Berg told Brentford club media. “My dreams came true: I was playing for one of the biggest teams in the world.
“But then I got dropped into the reserves and people started to forget about me a little bit. And then you come home… I lived alone, I had no one to talk to. That was hard for me.
READ MORE: Liverpool transfer news LIVE: Salah contract talks ‘reach dead end’, Robertson replacement plan
READ MORE: Jamie Carragher raises Mikel Arteta and Arsenal theory that will go down well at Liverpool
“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 just in my own head, coming home and just staring at the walls with nothing to do.”
Van Dijk and Van den Berg during a Liverpool training session -Credit:2024 Liverpool FC
Despite ultimately failing to make the grade at Anfield, departing for Brentford last summer, Van den Berg has not forgotten how Van Dijk helped him to settle in at the club.
“Van Dijk made me feel really welcome,” Van den Berg added. “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.”