Dirk Kuyt was a manager's delight. A willing runner who was rarely injured, something that is so difficult to find in modern football. When a forward is adored not just for his goal contributions, you know you’re onto something special.
Road to Anfield Road
I can’t sit here and pretend we were all glued to our television sets in the summer of 2006, wondering where Feyenoord forward, Dirk Kuyt, was going to end up once the transfer window closed.
Although we’d just come off the back of the most famous European night in our history, we still didn’t have the pull of the larger teams around us at the time.
In a transfer window where Andriy Shevchenko chose Chelsea, Ruud van Nistelrooy chose Real Madrid, and Ronaldo chose AC Milan, we had to look elsewhere. We settled for attacking options like Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Pennant.
Rafael Benitez, who was still in charge, had the near-impossible task of making a title-challenging team out of those players at his disposal, but the heart never really overruled the head in 2006.
We were battling for the top 4, having missed out the previous year, so the elusive prize of a league title was never really on the cards.
Kuyt had spent his entire career in Holland and never looked elsewhere, but what was clear in both his spells at Utrecht and Feyenoord was game time and consistency.
He chalked up 100 matches for each of the other teams in 3 seasons, being an ever-available member of each squad. It wasn’t just game time without output either. He combined for 120 goals for each outfit and showed that hard work really does pay off.
What Liverpool needed at that time was exactly that. We didn’t have the most technically gifted team in the world, or the most dangerous. But 3 months earlier, in Istanbul, we showed what hard work and not giving up gets you. That was Dirk in a nutshell.
The Relentless Dutchman
They don’t make players like Dirk Kuyt anymore, or at least they’re getting rarer and rarer. When I say he’d never tire, it’s not an understatement.
As he was doing his self-obligatory clap around all four corners of Anfield after every home game, he looked like he had 90 more minutes in him.
That aggressive and tireless playstyle was how he saw the majority of his chances for Liverpool. He’d always gamble on a loose ball, he’d always close the defender down, he’d always track his man back.
Whether it was minute 1 or minute 101, you could guarantee Kuyt wouldn’t be too far away from making an impact. That’s what he was, an impact player.
Not in the traditional sense of coming off the bench and making a difference, but he was present and ready for the whole match. Must be nice seeing a back four slowly tire over a game and you haven’t broken a sweat.
Occasions never seemed to faze Kuyt either. Knowing the honor of pulling on a Liverpool shirt, he knew the gravity of the larger games we had to play in.
That was a bit of a theme of the times with this era of Liverpool. They could have been viewed as a mediocre team at times, but you always knew they had the big game players for the big game moments.
In a time when we were viewed as the 6th best in the ‘top 6’, Kuyt would rise up. 13 goals and 8 assists in top 6 games isn’t an accident. It’s being in the right place, at the right time, every time, because let's be honest, we were hardly creating 10-15 chances per game back then.
He was so reliable. In the season we made it to the 2007 Champions League final, he found the net five times and scored our only goal of the final. Sadly, that day didn’t go our way, but Kuyt still had his say.
He was also largely responsible for getting us there, scoring the winning penalty in the semi-final against Chelsea at Anfield. The puff of the chest pre-run up helped us all catch our breath, as there was only going to be one outcome.
But European accolades aside, there was one day in particular that stands out more than the others.
The 6-yard hat trick
Fast forward to the closing of Dirk Kuyt’s time at Liverpool. He’d been the most loyal of servants in the 5 years prior, and he was entering his penultimate year in Merseyside.
Manchester United were the visitors in early May, and we hadn’t had the best of luck against them in recent times.
We did, however, have this Uruguayan magician who seemed to bend the fabric of time and space when he played football. Luis Suarez had been at the club for 2 months, and he’d already turned a lot of heads.
He was pivotal to Kuyt’s finest 90 minutes in a red shirt. It’s a two-parter. Part one, Suarez super human football ability. Part two, Dirk Kuyt, the ultimate opportunist.
Kuyt scored three goals that day, and he wouldn’t score an easier three goals for the rest of his career.
Number one came after Luis Suarez took the ball past 3 United players in the distance of just inside the box to the byline. 3 fully grown, fully professional players.
He somehow squeezed the ball under Edwin van de Sar, and it was heading towards goal but curling slightly away. Kuyt couldn’t take the chance on a clearance and popped it over the line whilst it was on the line.
1-0, total hat-trick yardage so far, 0.0.
Goal number two came from a glaring mistake by Nani. A whipped ball in from the right isn’t dealt with at all by the Portuguese winger.
He heads it back towards his own goal and over his centre halves. Who is lurking behind them? Dirk Kuyt, who heads an effort on goal.
2-0, total hat-trick yardage so far: 5.0 yards.
Kuyt's third and final goal is down to Suarez again. Liverpool had a free kick around 25 yards out. What would soon come to be known as Suarez territory. He gets the free kick off and on target, but van der Sar spills it.
Kuyt is the first to react, as he always was, scooping the spilt save over the United goalkeeper for his third.
3-0, total hat-trick yardage: 6.0 yards.
One of the most unique hat-tricks we’d ever seen and the first at that time against United for 21 years.
Whilst it wasn’t the most glamorous hat-tricks by a long shot, it encapsulated everything Dirk Kuyt was about. He was where we needed him to be at all times, and this wasn’t an accident.
Liverpool find themselves under the tutelage of a new press-heavy, demanding manager as we head into the 2026/27 season. What Andoni Iraola wouldn’t give for a couple of Dirk Kuyt’s in his first line-up of the season.
Liverpool Lore will return next Thursday with another player spotlight.
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