Hi, my name is Virgil van Dijk.
I'm a defender and I play for Liverpool, and Holland of course,
I don't think it's too hard to be motivated.
We all want to achieve great things.
You all want to get the maximum out of yourself in your career.
Everyone knows how short your career can be.
So everyone is just enjoying it and giving it everything that they have,
and hopefully with the team, the club we play for,
the fans - the whole package,
we can create history and good moments again.
I think the most important thing is to...
put things in perspective and just...
listen to the people that are very close to you,
and obviously listen to yourself.
You know exactly where you do things well, where you don't do things well,
and take things at a time, stay humble.
I think it's a mixture of the hard work we put in,
and also the tactics and the intensity that we put in.
I don't think we are a nice team to play against,
we have a lot of weapons - I think you can call them -
can defend well as a team, but we also can counter-press,
that's something that we work on a daily basis.
But if you look at the players we have in each position,
we can all make a difference and we all have responsibilities in our team
to make it very difficult for an opponent.
So, you know, we just want to keep it going, of course,
and create good things.
Yeah, definitely, definitely!
Well, I want to do everything in a clean way.
I won't do anything in another way,
I want to win with quality and be the better side
on the winning end.
So, yeah, that's with everything, I think.
Well, I think the most important thing is - and that's not even physically
or any of that - is just mentally.
I think it's just to keep working on hard, stay true to yourself, stay humble.
Enjoy the hard work as well. Enjoy the difficult times,
obviously enjoy also the most beautiful things because, you know, they fly by.
And also young players who are in the Academy,
or not even in the Academy yet,
there are so many routes towards being a professional football player,
or winning the Champions League or something like it.
So if it doesn't happen when you're 18 years old, there's still plenty of time.
You know, there's so many examples of other players who've been to that level
that are not, you know, Ronaldo, Messi,
who made their debut when they were 17, 18
and have been at the top for such a long time.
So, don't give up, and just enjoy it.
I want to do everything that's possible, in a clean way, to win the game,
and do it all together as a team, you know,
that's the beauty as well at this club and with this team and what I've experienced here,
we all do it together and everyone has their responsibilities,
everyone has to fulfil their responsibilities in order to get a good result.
So it's a beautiful, beautiful thing here and...
Yeah, winning is is the most important thing and something I do everything for.
Well, that's a difficult one, because it also depends a bit on the team.
You know, the way your team plays and what the team expects you to to be.
But I think these days as a defender,
I won't say a physical attribute again,
but reading of the game and communicating is a massive part of being a centre-back.
Bring calmness to the team when there is pressure as well,
and when the game is so hectic.
I would say Ronald Koeman, yeah.
More and more, because obviously he's quite an important figure
in my career so far.
And he won the Euros with Holland in '88.
So I would say him.
It's definitely a tough pre-season.
I think the message in pre-season is always to set the foundation for the rest of the season,
because the amount of games we play,
for example in the first of the season, is immense.
We travel, we don't have proper time to...
have long tactical sessions during the season,
so we set the foundation in the pre-season,
that's definitely the thing.
Well, hard work, in my opinion, you need to have a little bit of talent
to be able to make it, of course, and a little bit of luck.
But yeah, hard work is the basic,
you always have to make sure that you are giving your 100% each and every day.