When the world's best defender was at death's door

It is, without doubt, the least known thing about the Liverpool CB. One day he fell ill when he played for Dutch side Groningen.

They thought it was the flu, but it wasn't. Van Dijk told 'FourFourTwo' magazine what he felt in those dark days. It turned out he was suffering from appendicitis, peritonitis and a kidney infection all at once.

Van Dijk was lucky. There are not many people who go through what he went through and live to tell the tale. "The only thing that I could see was tubes hanging over me. My body was broken and I couldn't do anything. The worst-case scenarios were going through my head", the footballer revealed.

He was playing for Groningen, and his manager at the time told him what happened. "At the start, we thought he had the flu" He was at home for a few days and had a lot of pain in the abdomen. He went to the local hospital but they couldn't find anything, so they sent him back home", he said.

"It was then his mum who took him back to the hospital upon seeing that it wasn't normal. It was crucial in saving his life, Dick Lukkien added, who was his manager at the Dutch outfit.

Van Dijk saw things so badly that he even made a will. If I died, a part of my money would have gone to my mum. Of course, no one wanted to speak about that, but we had to do it. I could have died", the Dutch CB said.

He fought against the illness and recovered, and continued to play football, growing as a footballer until he became one of the best players in the world, and the best CB.