Defenders often don’t get their due in world football, and it’s a conundrum that has impacted the position, especially the center back position, for several decades; it’s not a new phenomenon.
Fabio Cannavaro, Franz Beckenbauer, and Mattias Sammer are the only defensive players to have won the Ballon d’Or. In addition to just being underrated in general, defenders are hurt by the fact that defensive output and impact are much more difficult to measure objectively and statistically than attacking impact.
Even the new-age analytics often do a poor job of adequately evaluating or contextualizing the value of defensive performances. As Paolo Maldini liked to say, the best defenders often don’t have to make an intervention at all.
Virgil Van Dijk was worth the record transfer fee at center back
So choosing the best center back in the world right now is not an easy task. When combining the analytics, expert consensus, pedigree, team success, and the fabled “eye test”, though, it’s pretty clear that Liverpool star Virgil van Dijk is the best center back on the planet here in 2025.
Van Dijk has been operating at the highest level pretty much ever since he joined Liverpool in 2017 for 75 million pounds, which, at the time, was a world-record fee for a defender.
The Dutchman would become a key pillar in Liverpool becoming one of Europe’s most dominant sides and resurfacing as a world power. They made three Champions League Finals in five seasons, including a title triumph in 2018/19, and had one of the greatest ever Premier League seasons in 2019/10 to break up Manchester City’s hegemony.
Virgil van Dijk made the Premier League Team of the Season four times
Along the way, Van Dijk would make the Premier League Team of the Season four times and win both the Premier League Player of the Season and UEFA’s prestigious Player of the Season honors in 2018/19.
He is a four-time member of the FIFA Team of the Year and one of the starting center backs in the IFFHS UEFA Team of the Decade for the 2010s alongside Sergio Ramos, who is regarded as the only modern defender who can rival Maldini and Beckenbauer in the GOAT conversation.
But with all the accolades he has won, Van Dijk merits some GOAT consideration, too, in a tier just behind that trio. After all, former Liverpool star center back Jamie Carragher gloated that Van Dijk is the best Premier League center back of all time and that it’s “not even close”.
Though Carragher may be a legendary Premier League defender and a footballing historian, you may claim bias because of his Liverpool ties. So then, the testimony of one of Van Dijk’s former rivals, former Manchester City star center back Vincent Kompany, must surely weigh heavily.
Vincent Kompany said Virgil van Dijk is the GOAT Premier League CB
Kompany, back in 2019 months after his amazing longshot goal helped Man City keep their title-winning ways going over Liverpool, praised Van Dijk as the best Premier League center back ever – more than five years before Carragher did.
That’s the pedigree Van Dijk comes to the table with, and it is well-earned. He has only enhanced his reputation at the age of 33 for a Liverpool side that is a clear first in both the Champions League and Premier League here in the 2024/25 season.
Van Dijk is averaging 1.1 tackles per game and 1.6 interceptions per game with 4.3 clearances per match and an average of just 0.3 dribbles completed allowed. On the ball, he is in the 92nd percentile in pass completion percentage with 92 percent of his 76.4 pass attempts completed.
So the Netherlands international is providing shutdown defense, quality ball-winning, leadership, and accurate passing in the most competitive league in Europe’s top five for the best team in the world right now.
Here are five other great center backs in world football right now
Real Madrid’s Eder Militao, Inter Milan’s Alessandro Bastoni and recent Italian breakout star Alessandro Buongiorno of Napoli all have legitimate cases, and Van Dijk’s own Premier League rivals Ruben Dias and William Saliba merit serious consideration.
However, none of them have been as cool and collected as Van Dijk this season on as successful of a team, and none of them come close to matching the 33-year-old’s career achievements in a Liverpool shirt over the past eight years. Van Dijk, right now, is in a class of his own at the center back position.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.