Screening on Netflix at the moment is Liverpool’s Miracle of Istanbul, the story of the club’s penalty-shootout win in the 2005 Champions League final against Milan after being 3-0 down at half-time. Yet the tale actually begins 12 months earlier at the European Championship in Portugal, where the newly appointed Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez met Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen, the core of the Liverpool team, at England’s team hotel.Rather than sell his big vision, Benitez picked out a few things he wanted to change, especially relating to Steven Gerrard, the captain who was thinking about leaving for Chelsea.Carragher, in particular, could not believe what he was hearing — Benitez was not attempting to impress anyone or bring them with him. In the end, it was Owen who left — just a few months later, to Real Madrid — and Gerrard remained, helping inspire Liverpool to an improbable fifth European crown at the end of the next season.Liverpool’s star players did not hear what they wanted in Lisbon, but you could never accuse Benitez of not having the required independence of mind to lead Liverpool.Just over two decades on from that awkward introduction, Liverpool are close to appointing another Spaniard as manager in Andoni Iraola.Unlike Benitez, who arrived at Anfield with inflated confidence having won two La Liga titles in three seasons at Valencia, along with the UEFA Cup, Iraola’s track record is one of a developer at each of his previous clubs rather than a deliverer of trophies.He led Rayo Vallecano to promotion from Spain’s Segunda Division through the play-offs and then successive mid-table placings in La Liga, as well as three seasons of steady positional improvement at Bournemouth, culminating with European qualification for the first time in the club’s history.It would not be unusual for any newly appointed head coach or manager to seek out the senior players at his new club, as Benitez did all that time ago, but even in a World Cup summer Iraola should make it his priority once his future on Merseyside is settled.The make-up of the Liverpool squad has changed dramatically over the last 12 months and recently lost two more figures from the established leadership group in Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson. There was also uncertainty over the future of goalkeeper Alisson, although he now seems likely to stay.The dynamic means Virgil van Dijk, who like Alisson only has one year left to run on his contract, now stands taller than ever before in the hierarchy of Liverpool’s dressing room.He is the captain, of course, but his responsibilities are huge. He is the main spokesperson for the team — Arne Slot was the only Liverpool representative to talk more to the media than Van Dijk last season — and still one of its most consistent performers. He played every minute in the Premier League in 2025-26, becoming — at 34 — the oldest outfield player to do so.While there were moments his performances suffered, it should not be forgotten that he was in effect carrying Liverpool’s defence. Alisson was injured for long spells; Ibrahima Konate, his central defensive partner, had some dreadful moments and was wrestling with his own contract situation; Robertson, so reassuring so for so long at left-back, was being phased out; and right-back was a mess, with long-term injuries ruling out Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong struggling for form and fitness. Given the flux and struggle around him, perhaps it is no surprise that Van Dijk found it increasingly difficult to contain his frustration, notably after the FA Cup defeat at Manchester City when he said the players had let down themselves, Slot and Liverpool’s fans.Given Van Dijk’s status, it stands to reason Iraola would have a conversation with him at some point soon, but there is potentially greater significance than simply following any unofficial protocol. Virgil van Dijk was a Premier League ever-present last season (Jack Thomas/Getty Images)Van Dijk is now the longest-serving player at the club aside from Curtis Jones, who came through the club’s academy system which he entered as a five-year-old. Along with Alisson (and to a lesser degree, Jones, who only emerged as a first-team regular in 2020), Van Dijk is the final connection to the best years of the Jurgen Klopp era.Klopp might be irreplaceable and the desire of some in the Liverpool fanbase to move on from him for fear of becoming stuck in the past is understandable. They may be very different personalities, but Iraola ultimately shares some similarities with Klopp in terms of their expectations of training intensity and playing style. It is one of the reasons he has emerged as the leading contender to succeed Slot: Anfield’s kingmakers not only think his football is closer to current trends, but is more likely to resonate with an Anfield crowd thrilled by the team’s relentlessness under Klopp.Van Dijk knows better than anyone else at Liverpool where that can lead and, if he is convinced of Iraola’s plan, then it becomes easier to carry a squad that needs jolting and to some degree unifying because of its different parts and levels of experience.Under Klopp, days were long and it meant players often missed school runs, both dropping off and picking up. Liverpool became successful but, over a long period of time, the players became drained. Slot was thorough but afforded greater freedoms and everyone bought into the change of approach in year one.Both Slot and the players have since been criticised for allegedly spending too much time away from the training ground but Liverpool’s records suggest days off were fewer in the second season of Slot than they were in the last of Klopp. Somewhere along the line, though, the idea that Liverpool’s players were training “smarter” translated into it being easier than it was before, standards dropping and a feeling they were not being pushed hard enough because, even against some opponents who struggled without the ball, they were out-run.If he continues with the same approach that helped Bournemouth rise, Iraola will change the culture and Liverpool’s players will have to get used to working six or seven-day weeks, with sessions following match days, even for those who start games.When Antoine Semenyo was asked earlier this year about whether he could see the advantages of Iraola’s intensity after his appointment in 2023, the forward was refreshingly candid. “I didn’t see it at the start,” he told the In the Mixer podcast. Semenyo admitted that it took time for Bournemouth’s players to get used to the way weeks were structured. “We didn’t get days off, nothing,” he observed. Semenyo, whose performances under Iraola earned him a move to Manchester City, recalled Sunday sessions after Saturday games. “You’d do the first 30-40 minutes and your legs were gone.” Initially, the results did not go Bournemouth’s way but they followed when the players got used to the risks of the man-to-man marking system that Iraola favoured.Such testimony is a reminder that Iraola’s methods take some getting used to. At Liverpool, he will find himself in a tight corner pretty quickly if he fails to win any of his first 10 games, as he did at Bournemouth.Yet the chances of that happening must surely decrease if he gets Van Dijk onside. The extent of his enduring influence was even underlined by the reaction to Slot’s departure. The fact that no player had posted a tribute to the outgoing coach had raised some eyebrows until Van Dijk posted his own brief missive on social media. After that, other players followed his lead.Van Dijk understands his significance at Liverpool. He takes his responsibilities as skipper seriously and is demanding of himself and those around him. The fact is that Iraola will need Van Dijk to buy into him and his methods. And there is another factor at play, too. Van Dijk is out of contract himself in 2027. He will also know that he needs next season to work out well if he wants to extend his own Liverpool career beyond next summer.