In a surprising twist, a report from Diario AS claims that Liverpool skipper Virgil van Dijk made a serious effort to secure a move to Real Madrid last summer before eventually renewing his deal at Anfield.<\/p>\n
The revelation has emerged on the very day Liverpool and Real Madrid face off in the Champions League, adding another layer of drama to the clash.<\/p>\n
According to the Spanish outlet, Van Dijk and his camp \u201cpushed until the final moment\u201d to make the switch to the Santiago Bernab\u00e9u.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk\u2019s camp made contact with Madrid<\/p>\n
It\u2019s reported that the defender\u2019s representatives contacted intermediaries in Spain in an attempt to open talks with Real Madrid\u2019s board, hoping to assess whether a transfer was possible.<\/p>\n
However, the response from Madrid was said to be lukewarm, as the club preferred to prioritise younger defensive options.<\/p>\n
At the time, Van Dijk had not agreed to a new Liverpool deal, which only fuelled rumours that he was considering a move abroad after years of success in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
Instead, Real Madrid opted to focus on youth, signing Dean Huijsen and sticking with their existing centre-back options in \u00c9der Milit\u00e3o, Antonio R\u00fcdiger, and David Alaba.<\/p>\n
Liverpool captain signs new contract<\/p>\n
Van Dijk eventually committed his future to Liverpool, penning a fresh contract in the summer and reinforcing his leadership role at the club.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman has continued to be a key figure on and off the field for the Reds.<\/p>\n
With Madrid now back at Anfield for a crucial Champions League showdown, the timing of the report has sparked fresh debate about how close Van Dijk really came to wearing white.<\/p>\n
In the end, both clubs appear content with how things played out \u2014 Madrid with their long-term project, and Liverpool with their captain still at the heart of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a surprising twist, a report from Diario AS claims that Liverpool skipper Virgil van Dijk made a serious effort to secure a move to Real Madrid last summer before eventually renewing his deal at Anfield. The revelation has emerged on the very day Liverpool and Real Madrid face off in the Champions League, adding …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":53628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-68-2-1200x722-1-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53629,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53627\/revisions\/53629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}