Sports
Dissecting Haaland vs Van Dijk: When the league's best striker took on its best defender
The best striker in the Premier League versus the best defender in the Premier League in a one-on-one showdown with millions of people watching across the world?
Liverpool vs Manchester City had far bigger things at stake on Sunday (it finished 1-1 for those of you who live on Mars) but those few seconds when Erling Haaland took on Virgil van Dijk were explosive and exciting.
Two masters of their art had almost 3,500 square metres of hallowed Anfield turf to themselves.
Haaland thundered towards goal, dancing around the ball with protracted step-overs and feints, desperate to tempt a challenge from the game’s most unflappable centre-half. But the Dutchman resisted, back-tracking towards his own goal, and though he ultimately could not stop Haaland from slipping away and taking on the shot, it was an effort comfortably collected by his goalkeeper.
Fantastic defending, or a slice of luck? The Athletic breaks it down, with the help of former Premier League strikers and centre-backs.
The Premier League title race on The Athletic…
So, the ball breaks, and you’re staring down a single defender, with the freedom of the pitch to work with. What is going through your head?
“Well, you’re weighing up who you’re up against”, the Premier League’s all-time top goalscorer Alan Shearer tells The Athletic. “If, for argument’s sake, you’re up against a guy who you know is not as quick, then the obvious thing you’re going to do is knock it and run it.”
“But he knows he isn’t going to do that to Virgil, because the Liverpool defender is one of the few people who can keep up with Haaland — even running backwards.”
The solution is to unsettle Van Dijk, to throw him off balance with a series of twisting dummies and drives. During a five-second stampede, the Norwegian throws in three body feints, two changes of direction and one devastating burst of pace to finally break away from his defender’s grasp.
Haaland’s first move is to dart onto his right foot; this is across the defender’s body and away from where Van Dijk is trying to show him, but onto his weaker foot.
Note Van Dijk’s body shape — side-on and crouched low, able to shift his body weight if required. That stance, according to former Ivory Coast centre-back Sol Bamba, is crucial to the battle.
“Usually, if I was coaching a young defender, I would not tell them to turn their back to the ball so much. But Van Dijk never loses sight of where Haaland is — he is low on his knees and side-on, which means he is prepared to spring in any direction to follow his run.”
Seconds later, and Haaland has changed tack once again.
“What he’s trying to do is go left, go right, go left, go right, and then try to get Virgil off balance to gain control of the duel. But the defender doesn’t dive in, he stands up the whole way,” says Shearer.
It is a move for which Van Dijk has become renowned during his imperious spell at the heart of Liverpool’s defence, famously warding Tottenham’s Moussa Sissoko onto his left foot during a similar break back in 2019.
Statistically, that shows through with the ‘true’ tackles metric, which combines tackles won and lost, as well as fouls committed while attempting a tackle, to measure how often a player looks to “stick a foot in”. Over the last five seasons, Van Dijk averages just 2.2 tackle attempts per game, but crucially, his success rate is up at a very high 61 per cent.
“He never dives in and that’s an art”, says Bamba. “It is so easy to be tempted to go in for the tackle, but if you dive in, someone like Haaland is just going to push the ball past you and beat you.”
“If it was me, I probably would have committed,” Bamba continues, “Neil Warnock used to say to us, ‘If the ball passes, the striker doesn’t!’.”
“But it takes real discipline to back off like that. Van Dijk is clever, plays with his head and reads the game really well.”
The relentless Haaland continues to twist and turn even as the spaces continue to be shut down.
Having already turned Van Dijk around twice, the striker plants his right foot as if he is about to drag the ball over with his left, but instead ducks to the opposite side and continues onto his stronger foot.
Here we can see the subtle move in three frames, as Haaland nudges the ball underneath Van Dijk’s trailing boot and powers towards the penalty area.
The resulting shot, however, is weak, and Shearer puts that down to the defensive pressure.
“Because he hadn’t had much joy in going left and right, Haaland is thinking, ‘Right, I’m going to run out of time in a minute, so I have to get my shot away pretty quickly’.”
“In reality, he would have preferred to be another three or four yards closer, so that’s part of Van Dijk doing his job and making the forward’s mind up to take the shot where he has done”
Having kept close to Haaland all the way through, the defender even manages to lean into the striker just as he is lining up his shot.
Off balance, forced wide, and with his angles narrowed down, patient defensive play and constant attention to the ball have minimised the probability of the world’s most lethal striker getting a clean shot away, an effort valued at 0.10 expected goals by Opta, essentially suggesting an average player would have a 10 per cent chance of scoring. Not a bad result from an intimidating one-v-one.
“He makes it so uncomfortable for him,” says Bamba, “He is so close to him for 40 metres, and forces him into a difficult shot.”
“I would’ve fancied it in my heyday, yeah!” chuckled Shearer, asked if he would have enjoyed such a showdown in a massive game such as this. You can’t begrudge the confidence from a man with 260 Premier League goals.
But there aren’t many players in world football who can reliably beat Van Dijk in a one-v-one, as his latest titanic tussle showed.
“He would have believed in himself in that situation, Haaland, but it just didn’t happen”, said Shearer, “and that was more through really, really good defending than it was poor attacking play.”
Let’s hope we get a re-run again soon.
(Top photo: Premier League)
Sports
Florida AG launches civil rights investigation into MLB’s warning to Christian pitchers over Pride Night caps
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The attorneys general from Missouri and Florida have reacted strongly to the controversy stirred when Major League Baseball warned three San Francisco Giants players about inscribing a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps, and that reaction includes MLB being served with a subpoena that signals the launch of an official investigation.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched his investigation on Friday by serving MLB with a subpoena to investigate whether it is violating the civil rights of players based on their religious beliefs.
The general purpose and scope of Florida’s investigation “extend(s) to possible civil rights and deceptive and unfair trade practices violations in matters of employment concerning the business practices, policies, and procedures of Major League Baseball,” per the subpoena obtained by Fox News Digital.
In a letter from Uthmeier to MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred, the AG warns that “a pattern or practice of selectively enforcing its rules to benefit favored secular beliefs over disfavored religious beliefs would not only potentially violate Florida civil rights law, but it would also violate the League’s own policies.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL FACES BACKLASH FOR ITS STANCE ON CHRISTIANS WRITING BIBLE VERSES ON PRIDE CAPS
“And a practice of claiming not to discriminate based on religion while discriminating based on religion could further amount to an unfair or deceptive trade practice in violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speaks at a news conference in Orlando on July 15, 2025, where he said U.S. Masters Swimming should not allow transgender athletes to compete against women swimmers or face legal action. Advocates Cassidy Carlisle and Lainey Armistead also attended. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service)
Uthmeier is particularly troubled by the fact MLB said its warning had nothing to do with the players’ religious beliefs but rather was strictly because of a violation of the league’s uniform code.
It should be noted MLB said in a follow-up statement to its initial warning to the players that it was merely enforcing its uniform codes and the warning had nothing to do with Giants pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker writing a Bible verse on the team’s Pride Night Cap most of the other players wore.
MLB ACCUSED OF ‘DOUBLE STANDARD’ AFTER CALLING OUT PLAYERS’ BIBLE MESSAGES DESPITE BACKING BLM IN 2020
Uthmeier noted that doesn’t ring true and presented in his letter a handful of examples where MLB has been absolutely fine with players adding to their uniform.
“In 2019, for example, a Cincinnati Reds player wrote on his cap in tribute to a nearby mass shooting,” Uthmeier wrote to Manfred. “And in 2020, MLB evidently added new, sweeping exceptions to its uniform rules by allowing players to ‘support social justice and diversity and inclusion.’ These policy changes included permitting players to add Black Lives Matter patches to their sleeves.
“MLB therefore appears to applaud — even change its rules for — the ideological beliefs it prefers, but targets players who express religious views the League doesn’t like.”
Commissioner of Major League Baseball Robert D. Manfred Jr. speaks at the 2024 MLB Draft presented by Nike at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 14, 2024. (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The Florida subpoena, issued under the Florida Civil Rights Act, demands action from MLB on July 23, 2026, at 9 a.m.. At that time, MLB must deliver to the AG’s office documents including:
- All documents concerning how MLB characterized or classified the June 2026 cap writing, including, for example, whether MLB treated it as religious expression, political messaging, protest, or a violation unrelated to its content.
- All documents concerning what prompted MLB’s review of and warning regarding the June 2026 cap writing, including any complaint, media inquiry, internal escalation, or third-party communication received before the warning issued, and the timing of each relative to the warning.
- All documents concerning the actual June 2026 warnings issued by the MLB to any club.
- All documents, including drafts and internal deliberations, concerning MLB’s decision to issue and publicly announce the June 2026 warnings, and any analysis of whether doing so adhered to the Code or with MLB’s treatment of comparable non-religious expression.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Landen Roupp wrote “Genesis 9:12-16” on his Pride-Night themed hat. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Uthmeier is thus joining Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who recently wrote a letter to Manfred asking the commissioner to confirm that no player who has chosen to refrain from “wearing Pride Month paraphernalia or included Bible verses on Pride Month hats” will not be disciplined in any way.
Hanaway’s letter states that if Manfred fails to answer by June 25 or does not confirm that no discipline will be levied, she too will open an investigation of MLB.
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The two attorneys general have authority over their individual states. But it affects four MLB teams.
Florida is home to two MLB teams — the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — while Missouri is home to the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals.
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Sports
Commentary: Why MLB’s Pride Night cap condemnation isn’t the anti-Christian crackdown conservatives claim
Amid the first days of grief after Alex Vesia and his wife lost their newborn daughter last fall, Vesia noticed something as he watched the World Series on television. He paused the broadcast, then checked the video, then texted another player to make sure.
51.
Dodgers teammates wore his number on their caps. So did players from the Toronto Blue Jays.
“It was awesome,” Vesia said. “It was a very heartwarming moment.”
Moving.
Touching.
And, under baseball’s rules, illegal.
Who knew, really, until this week? Three pitchers from the San Francisco Giants wrote the name of a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps and, amid an uproar, Major League Baseball said it had warned the players that “writing of any kind, with any message” on any playing apparel is not permitted. The issue, the league said in a statement, was not what they wrote on their caps but simply that they wrote on them at all.
Said MLB in the statement: “We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad’, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom’ and names of family members.”
To its credit, the league did not enforce the rule when Vesia’s number started appearing on caps in the World Series. But, if you’re going to draw a line on enforcement, where should you draw it?
In San Francisco, the actions of the Giants’ pitchers were widely condemned.
“They were in for a rude awakening with the response, and it wasn’t just from the gay community,” Giants broadcaster and former pitcher Mike Krukow told KNBR, the team’s flagship radio station. “It was from the Northern California community that supports the gay community.”
In response to media inquiries, and as first reported by Outsports, MLB confirmed it had warned the three players. I asked the league whether warnings had been issued in two other instances in which players had written on their caps, including Clayton Kershaw last year writing the same Bible verse on his Pride Night cap that the Giants’ pitchers wrote this year. MLB declined to comment.
“I got chastised by the league when I put Charlie [Kirk]’s name on my hat last year, because a man was murdered in cold blood,” Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen told me, “and now these gentlemen who are relievers in San Francisco are getting chastised by the league for putting a Bible verse on their hat. It’s crazy to me.”
Treinen said league officials had told him the rule is strictly enforced.
“I straight up asked Clayton last year, ‘Did they call you when you put that on your hat?’” Treinen said. “He said, ‘No.’”
The Pride caps feature team logos decorated in the colors of the rainbow, a symbol long associated with the gay community. In the Bible verse cited by the pitchers (Genesis 9:12-16), the rainbow represents “the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures.”
That the league would warn players against writing a Bible verse on their caps ignited a wave of conservative outrage, from Vice President JD Vance to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley fired off a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, alleging apparent discrimination “against baseball players who profess their Christian faith” and threatening the league’s antitrust exemption. Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon said on national television that players might be able to file a claim for employment discrimination.
That is complete nonsense. This is what you want: When employees raise an issue to their employer, the employer listens and addresses their concerns.
In 2023, the year after five Tampa Bay Rays players declined to wear rainbow logos for Pride Night, Manfred said the league would no longer compel players to do so.
“We have told teams, in terms of actual uniforms, hats, bases that we don’t think putting logos on them is a good idea just because of the desire to protect players: not putting them in a position of doing something that may make them uncomfortable because of their personal views,” Manfred said then.
Teammates congratulate Freddie Freeman after his walk-off home run gave the Dodgers a 1-0 win on June 5, when the Dodgers held their annual Pride Night. Blake Treinen, the winning pitcher that night, elected to wear his regular Dodgers cap instead of the Pride version.
(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
Manfred said the Pride Night celebrations could go on, however a team wished to stage them — or not, in the case of the Texas Rangers, the only one of the 30 MLB teams that declines to hold a Pride Night. And the league still sells Pride gear on its website for all teams, including the Rangers.
In the cases of the Giants and Dodgers, MLB grandfathered each team’s long-running use of a rainbow logo on the cap, with this accommodation to players: If you don’t feel comfortable wearing the Pride cap, just wear your regular cap.
That is what Treinen and outfielder Alex Call did when the Dodgers celebrated Pride Night. That is also what a fourth Giants pitcher did.
“My job is to abide by the rules,” Treinen said. “Ultimately, the only rule we have is to wear our team-issued uniform. So that’s what I chose to do.”
To Treinen, the decision over whether to wear a Pride cap is not about passing judgment on anyone else but about what he sees as the push “to force something on people that you know that is controversial to their faith — and, in fact, straight up against their faith.”
He expressed his support for the Giants pitchers.
“Kudos to those men over there who are standing strong in their faith,” he said. “It’s a sad thing to corner someone and try to make them feel bad about their convictions.”
I respect Treinen for explaining his viewpoint. To me, wearing a Pride cap for one night does not diminish your faith at all. It might sharpen your convictions. More important, it signals a welcome to everyone in the community that buys the tickets and broadcast subscriptions that help pay your salary.
“I think a few people made it about themselves and not about the community,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie told the Bay Area Reporter.
We always proclaim the life lessons of sports. One of them: Sometimes you have to put the team’s interests ahead of your own.
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After its massive 1-0 win over South Korea on Thursday night, Mexico has won Group A and officially clinched a spot in the knockout round.
El Tri will play its Round of 32 game in Mexico City, and will face the third-place finisher in either Group C/E/F/H/I.
This is the fourth time that Mexico has topped the group stage of a World Cup, with the other three coming in 1986, 1994 and 2002.
With the win, Mexico remains unbeaten in World Cup group games at home, going a combined 6-2-0 (W-D-L), with two wins and a draw in 1970 and 1986, and now two wins in 2026.
Before the tournament began, Mexico was listed at +6500 to win the World Cup. Now, after winning its first two games of the tournament, Mexico has surged up the oddsboard to +5000.
Can Mexico build off its first two matches and make a deep run in this tournament? Let’s check out the updated odds for El Tri as of June 19.
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Team Mexico — Stage of Elimination
Last 32: +125 (bet $10 to win $22.50 total)
Last 16: +135 (bet $10 to win $23.50 total)
Quarterfinals: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Semifinals: +1600 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
Runner-up: +3000 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
Outright winner: +5000 (bet $10 to win $510 total)
Mexico is currently +5000 to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup after winning Group A (Getty Images).
Mexico’s Past World Cup Results:
1930: Group stage
1934: Did not qualify
1938: Withdrew
1950: Group stage
1954: Group stage
1958: Group stage
1962: Group stage
1966: Group stage
1970: Quarterfinals
1974: Did not qualify
1978: Group stage
1982: Did not qualify
1986: Quarterfinals
1990: Banned
1994: Round of 16
1998: Round of 16
2002: Round of 16
2006: Round of 16
2010: Round of 16
2014: Round of 16
2018: Round of 16
2022: Group stage
2026: TBD
What to know: Mexico has made a habit of being in the running, but never really being in the running. Make sense? Consider this: El Tri made it out of the group stage in seven consecutive World Cups (1994-2018), but never made it past the Round of 16 in any of those years. In 2022, Mexico failed to make it out of the group stage, and it will look to get back to its winning ways in 2026 after a great start to the tournament. With its win Thursday night, Mexico has now advanced to the knockout stage in eight of the last nine World Cups. It is important to note, however, that Mexico has never made it past the quarterfinals at a FIFA men’s World Cup.
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