We're at the hour mark of a Carabao Cup final that's been pure chaos. Liverpool vs Chelsea is usually a fun watch, but this is something else: two sides marred by injury and propped up by the inconsistency of youth creating (and missing) chances seemingly ever other minute. Which is when, enter around about the penalty spot of the Chelsea box, the most experienced man on the pitch: Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk. The freekick that Andy Robertson (another one of those rare experienced players in the final) swings in is delicious, and when you see van Dijk has the run on Chilwell you already know it's over. A thumping header and Djorde Petrovic has no chance. 1-0 Liverpool...
...and then VAR intervened. Of course, it wasn't going to be that straightforward. Not in this match. Liverpool had come into the game with half the senior squad injured. Chelsea had played most of the season with their expensively assembled squad rocked by injuries to key players.
As the match wore on, the chances became clearer, the misses more blatant, the saves even better as Petrovic and Caoimhin Kelleher competed to outshine each other. And the average age kept going down on the pitch: Liverpool had five players under-21 on the pitch, Chelsea had four (the latter's oldest player by the end was Christopher Nkunku, 26, on his injury-marred debut season in England). It was one of those youngsters who would start off the move that would eventually decide the match.
We're two minutes away from penalties. That lottery that heaps pressure on the most experienced, and here were these youngsters all set to face it in a Wembley final. Bobby Clark, 19, cuts in from the left, has a go, and it's deflected off Trevoh Chalobah for a corner. With Robertson off the pitch, up steps his backup, Kostas Tsimikas. He curls a wicked ball into that dangerous area just outside the six-yard box, and there he is again. van Dijk. This time, Chelsea have put Axel Disasi on him, but van Dijk is too wily, has read the situation just that bit faster. He starts the run early, leaving Disasi trailing, and the man he has to beat at the near post is now Mykhaylo Mudryk. And that's a no contest. And then the header: glancing it at just the right angle, the ball flying into the far corner, Petrovic with no chance again.
There would be a VAR check again, because as the comms said at the time "there's always a VAR check", but there was no infringement, minor or major, here. Just a superbly worked set-piece executed by the man who's played such a big role in making Liverpool the Liverpool they are today. And for that, Virgil van Dijk takes our moment of the weekend.
P.S.: Jurgen Klopp will leave Liverpool at the end of this season, after eight and a half years in charge. He's won the lot with the club, but this van Dijk goal and that brave performance from his academy charges means he will have at least the one trophy to mark his final season at Merseyside.