Decoding Virgil van Dijk: Part 1
Reverse-Engineering the World's Best Center Back with Data
“If I have to make a tackle, Ive already made a mistake” – Paolo Maldini
The Art of Defending
Paolo Maldini, widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders of all time, possessed a unique approach to defending. Rather than relying heavily on tackling, Maldini excelled at playing and marking his opponents out of the game. This distinctive style of defending, focused on nullifying the impact of his opponents, may not be adequately reflected in traditional event data that predominantly emphasizes on-the-ball actions.
Maldini's effectiveness as a defender stemmed from his exceptional ability to read the game, maintain optimal positioning, and anticipate and neutralize potential threats even before they materialized. These qualities are difficult to measure solely through statistical numbers.
Simply scoring high on metrics like interceptions, blocks, and tackles does not necessarily indicate exceptional defensive abilities. It could merely suggest that the player is frequently engaged in defensive actions due to the team's overall quality or style of play.
In other words, we can not really measure a defenders level and effectiveness by looking at which defenders that scores the best or highest on defensive statistics. In fact, I will argue that great defenders actually score low on traditional defensive statistics, especially center backs.
In the following section, I will try to pick out defensive statistics and turn them on the head. I believe this is a better way to measure elite defenders through data.
Profile - The Elite Center Back
Building on my structured approach from previous articles, I’ll once again apply The Data Scout Method to analyze football data.
To reverse-engineer the attributes of a great center-back, I’ll use the modern-day Maldini—Virgil van Dijk. Perhaps the best center-back of all time, Van Dijk exemplifies everything that defines an elite defender. Call me biased for being a Liverpool fan but I think he embodies all there is to a great defender.
Out of Possession
Let’s start by diving into his defensive stats from FBref.
At first glance, Van Dijk’s defensive stats look poor and underwhelming—there’s a lot of red across the board. But context is key. Based on my approach to analyzing defensive performance, these numbers actually reinforce his greatness.
For instance, he averages just 1 tackle per 90 minutes which puts him in the 9th percentile for defenders—remarkably low for a center-back. However, following Maldini’s philosophy that “If I have to make a tackle, I’ve already made a mistake,” these low numbers indicate elite positioning and anticipation rather than a lack of defensive ability. Van Dijk doesn’t need to dive into tackles because he reads the game so well, neutralizing threats before they escalate.
Naturally, this won’t show up in raw statistics—there’s no metric for positioning. But we can infer it through his minimal defensive actions.
One area where he does rank highly, however, is challenges lost—and in a good way. When Van Dijk does engage, he almost never loses, ranking in the 93rd percentile for this metric. He scores average to moderate for interceptions (60th percentile), but I don’t think high scores for interceptions are as bad as high scores on tackles. Interceptions are more connected to reading and anticipating the game.
From this, I can refine my data-driven search criteria: an elite center-back should score low on most defensive metrics, as this often signals superior positioning and game intelligence.
Certain defensive metrics are commonly used to evaluate top center-backs—particularly Aerial duels per 90 and Aerial duels won %. Most teams prioritize center-backs who can dominate in the air and defend their box effectively, and few do this better than Van Dijk. He wins an astonishing 72.2% of his aerial duels, ranking in the 95th percentile for defenders in Europe.
This makes aerial duels won and aerial duel win percentage crucial metrics in our search for the ideal center-back as well.
In Possession
In modern football, defenders aren’t just stoppers—they need to be comfortable on the ball and capable of progressing play. While Van Dijk's style may not always appear flashy, he ranks highly for overall progression.
In the last 365 days, he averages:
4.3 Progressive Passes per 90
7 Passes into the Final Third per 90
92.3 % for Overall Pass Completion
Beyond distribution, his ball security is elite. He averages 87.2 touches per 90 with just 0.18 miscontrols per 90, making him highly press-resistant. It’s rare to see him lose possession or commit costly errors.
However, his dominance can sometimes lead to overconfidence—as seen against Southampton this weekend, when he attempted to shield the ball for Alisson instead of clearing it, resulting in a goal.
The Elite Center Back
Here it is—my way of visualizing the world’s best center-back in a radar chart.
Conclusion
In this first installment of my elite center-back series, I redefined what makes a great defender using data. By using Virgil van Dijk as the benchmark for the ideal center-back, I establish his statistical profile as a reference point and I can set thresholds for my data-driven scouting search.
When analyzing event data, elite defenders should score highly in progressive metrics and aerial duels, while ranking low in traditional defensive stats like tackles, blocks and interceptions. This reflects strong positioning and game intelligence rather than reliance on last-ditch defending - staying true to Maldini’s definition.
However, there’s one important caveat: this approach may overlook quality defenders playing for teams that defend more frequently. These players naturally record higher defensive actions per 90 simply because they are under more pressure. One way to account for this is by adjusting for possession, but I won’t do that here.
That said, if you're a scout looking for standout defenders in weaker teams, possession-adjusted metrics are definitely worth considering.
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, where I’ll unveil my data scouting search and reveal the defenders in Europe who best match the Virgil van Dijk Archetype.
📧 If you enjoyed this post, I’d appreciate it if you would share it with a friend 🌟
🔗 I post regularly on my LinkedIn as well, so feel free to connect with me there 🤝
I wonder if advances in tracking technology will soon provide some kind of metric for positioning. Or something like Expected Threat but reversed to quantify how much a players action decreases the probability of their team scoring.
Not something I know much about but I'm sure with clubs using data so much now there must be some smart people working on it!