Liverpool have already signed their next great pairing - but another transfer is needed

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The skipper, for all of his unflappability, is no more immortal than any of the club's other legends.As one of this city's finest actors once said: "It is the end - but the moment has been prepared for."The future is nowWhether or not Van Dijk's time at the club comes to a close next summer, Liverpool have prepared for that eventuality with the signing of Giovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet - two of Europe's most promising young centre-halves.Leoni arrived from Parma in the summer of 2025; Jacquet, who agreed to the move six months earlier, will link up with the Reds this summer having graduated from the prestigious academy of Stade Rennais.Both have the chance to step up immediately. Liverpool, by all accounts, have elected to delay the signing of a direct replacement for Ibrahima Konate and will assess their current options while pursuing their priority targets for other departments of the team.With neither involved in the World Cup, Jacquet and Leoni are expected to be present from day one of Iraola's first pre-season and will be given the opportunity to prove themselves to the new manager in the hopes of cementing a place alongside van Dijk for the new season.They may be the future partnership that the Reds' next great team is built upon but, for now, no greater motivation is required.Speaking to VivoAzzurro TV before his Liverpool debut in September last year, Leoni was asked to name his idol in football."It has always been Van Dijk," Leoni said.

For all of the lazy criticism that is fired in his direction from his home country by former professionals more concerned about their take going viral, van Dijk is a player that every young defender wants to play alongside and learn from.The daunting prospect of succeeding one of the game's greatest-ever defenders could put some players off, but Leoni and Jacquet have embraced that pressure.At centre-back, where age and quality tend to correlate deeper into a player's career than other positions, the pair know full well that playing alongside Van Dijk - even if just for one season - will make them better players for the remainder of their careers, and better-suited to taking on the same responsibility once he is gone.The question, of course, is what they can offer in the here and now.Who will partner van Dijk?Joe Gomez is now Van Dijk's partner by default, though that framing does a disservice to the former Charlton Athletic man's quality and patience over 11 long years at the club.Gomez is a tremendous footballer at his best, and he won't turn 30 until May next year. It's ultimately a fruitless exercise, but it's hard not to wonder how different Gomez's career could have been had he not suffered an ACL injury on England Under-21s duty just two months after his arrival at Anfield in October 2015.Complications resulting from that injury lasted long after the event, and Gomez would not make another Premier League appearance until August of 2017.If anything, it is a mark of his resilience that he has gone on to reach the heights he has in his career since, making 274 appearances for Liverpool and 15 for his country.Nor is it too late for him to be a genuine first-choice centre-back, even at the Reds.

The Frenchman's standout aerial ability - he won 75.5% of his aerial duels for Rennes this season - makes him a close match for the profile of the departed Konate, though his progressive use of the ball and calmness under pressure also suggests he has the potential to one day play Van Dijk's all-encompassing role, too.In a grimly amusing reflection of Liverpool's own luckless run of defensive injuries, Jacquet dislocated his shoulder days after agreeing to the move and wouldn't play for Rennes again - yet he retains the advantage of having played more recently than Leoni, who missed the entire season after tearing his ACL on his Reds debut against Southampton in the League Cup.But what a debut it was. Six months after Liverpool tried to sign him in the summer of 2017, he eventually arrived at Anfield - at the age of 26.A world-class centre-back is not made overnight.Would Van Dijk have thrived had he been scooped up at 18 or 20 by a Liverpool, by a Chelsea, had he been born fifteen years later and made his first forays into the professional game under the glare of data analysis?