Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk is on cloud nine after winning his first piece of silverware as club captain and lifting the 2023/24 Carabao Cup.
It was his decisive match-winning header in extra time that helped the Reds secure a narrow win over Chelsea.
VVD has become a commanding leader on the pitch for Liverpool, but is actually a pretty private person who adores his time with his family.
Virgil also shares a very close bond with his wife and childhood sweetheart Rike Nooitgedagt, who has been with him through all his highs and lows.
How Did Virgil Van Dijk Meet His Wife Rike Nooitgedagt?
Virgil hails from the Dutch town of Breda in Netherlands and spent the majority of his life in the town before being able to flourish as a professional footballer.
He underwent his own troubles as a teenager and even had to work as a dishwasher during his time at Willem II youth academy.
Van Dijk met Nooitgedagt after he joined Groningen and has admitted to have started dating when he was around 20 –
[I have been with her] since the Groningen days [when he was 20]. The growth we’ve been through since then is great and we now have two little girls. You can’t deny that fatherhood changes you. There are always tough moments but when you go home to your wife and kids it’s all gone. For example when we lost to Barcelona you feel bad – but you go home and you think how far I’ve got. I deal with those aspects very well.
Rike is a few years younger than the Liverpool captain and around 30, meaning that the two have been together for over a decade now. They actually got married in the summer of 2017 when Virgil was playing for Southampton and even welcomed their first child together in 2014.
What Does Rike Nooitgedagt Do?
Before Van Dijk moved out of the Netherlands when Celtic signed him in 2013, Nooitgedagt was quite focused on her own profession.
She was a fashion sales manager in Groningen and had started to flourish in that job before being forced to give it up to move out of the country with Virgil, who moved to Scotland after his Celtic move.
She had talked about that shortly after Virgil joined the Scottish heavyweights –
I worked as a sales manager and sold different fashion brands to the stores in Holland. I loved it but had to resign to follow my man everywhere football takes him to.
When it comes to seeing his wife also work or pursue her ambitions, Van Dijk had told Dutch Soccer in 2018 –
We decided that she wouldn’t (work). If she really would want to, sure, I would never stop her, but we train at different times, so it could be that I’m away at night while she works in the morning and it would be hard to have a relationship. We like it as it is.
It appears that since moving out of the Netherlands, Rike has become totally devoted towards her husband and her family.
As of now, Virgil and Rike share four children – with their eldest daughter Nila to turn 10 later this year. What is rather fascinating and unique about Nooitgedagt is that she is totally absent from the world of social media and can’t be found on Instagram like so many of major football WAGs.
Despite that, Rike is called the ‘playmaker’ of the family by her husband –
When my family is happy and doing well, I am too. Football really is number 2 for me. Family is always #1. En that will always be that way. My daughters give me so much. And my wife is the centre of the family. She is the playmaker, haha. And I value her tremendously.
A footballer’s wife always needs to be strong, positive and happy. I realise this. But we simply can’t stroll through the park, or go out for a glass of wine. We are still young, but we never go out. The first two weeks in Liverpool, we were at this hotel and within a day, the media, paparazzi and the fans were in the hotel lobby. So, in all seriousness, I am not going into the city, ever. But, I am not complaining, the benefits outweigh the negatives by a country mile, hahaha.
She is a very private person and is rarely seen in publicly, opting to spend her daily life around Liverpool taking care of her children and mostly staying away from the public eye.
With that being said, Rike is often seen attending matches in which her husband plays in and has done it for over a decade ever since opting to move out of her home country with Virgil.
Nooitgedagt was seen attending Celtic’s matches during Virgil’s time with the club, and has also been pictured often in Liverpool kits for their matches as well as the Dutch national team games over the past few years too.
Rike is a regular attendee of the end-of-season tradition that Liverpool have to invite the wives and children of their players in their final home game of the season to interact with the supporters.
Despite not being that inclined to show off in public, Rike has done some modelling gigs with Virgil – with the two having also featured for Vogue in their 2019 fall edition.
She regularly attends football awards shows like the Ballon d’Or or FIFA The Best ceremonies with him and they tend to bring along their daughters too.
Rike seems to have embraced her role in taking care of the Van Dijk family, even at the cost of sacrificing her own personal career.
She has remained an immovable pillar that has supported and energized Virgil to keep getting past the obstacles and climbing his way to become a legendary figure for Liverpool.
