Virgil van Dijk is good… but Nemanja Vidic was a beast’ compilation emerges Champions League

With the coronavirus pandemic sideswiping any hope of live sport, never mind the Premier League, football fans have turned to other forms of entertainment on social media.

As far as Vidic vs Van Dijk is concerned, the flames of debate were initially stoked when World Cup winner and ex-Chelsea defender Frank Leboeuf revealed his preference to ESPN FC.

“I would go for Van Dijk. I think he’s more complete,” Leboeuf decreed.

“I loved Vidic, because I think he was a dog, and a fantastic defender. But Van Dijk can lead the team and has range. I don’t think Vidic was capable of doing that. Hats off to Vidic, though.”

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Van Dijk vs Vidic debate

And clearly that lone segment of analysis had something of a snowball effect, encouraging other pundits to make their choice, bringing fans into the situation and even encouraging mass votes.

Naturally, we couldn’t resist hopping on the trend and our GIVEMESPORT poll found that 54% of football fans thought that a prime Vidic was the better defender than Van Dijk.

If you think that putting the debate to the masses would settle things, though, you’re most certainly wrong and the latest forehand in this rally of words was actually a dig at Vidic.

‘Vidic was a BEAST’

Liverpool fan and Twitter user @donkopleone stitched together some of Vidic’s – or, in his words, ‘this joker’s’ – worst mistakes and racked up thousands of ‘likes’ for their handy work.

However, we’re all for a level playing field here and we’ve found the perfect rebuttal to that video, because YouTuber ‘Teo CRi’ has clearly been following the narrative on social media recently.

How so? Well, the content creator rustled up a 10-minute compilation that shows Vidic wasn’t the bumbling, mistake-prone centre-back he’s made out to be in the prior montage.

Aptly titled: ‘Van Dijk is Good…But Vidic was a BEAST!’, the video serves as a perfect companion piece for the fact most fans are backing the United man, even if we’re pretty sure it won’t end the debate for good.

You can check out the full video below:

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GIVEMESPORT’s Kobe Tong says

They don’t make players like Vidic anymore.

It could be argued that Vidic was the more mistake-prone defender and heck, I’ll agree with that, but the United legend gave you higher highs of defending even if there were lower lows.

However, let’s not read too much into that, because Vidic’s resumé speaks for itself.

Five Premier League titles, three League Cups, a Champions League title and FIFA Club World Cup isn’t something that Van Dijk can hold a candle to and it’s doubtful that he’ll ever.

Plus, Vidic was an integral part of the longest clean sheet streak in Premier League history and is the only defender to ever win the competition’s Player of the Year award twice.

So, yes, Van Dijk is well on his way to becoming a legendary Premier League defender, but there’s still a long road ahead for him if he wants to share a throne with Vidic himself.