Virgil van Dijk has tweeted an emotional message after he made his long-awaited return from injury to feature in Liverpool's 4-3 pre-season friendly defeat to Hertha Berlin.
The Dutch centre-back has been sidelined for over nine months after he suffered cruciate ligament damage during his team's Merseyside Derby against Everton last October.
But he has been working hard on his recovery ever since, and has finally returned to full fitness in what is a huge boost for the Reds ahead of the new season.
On Thursday night he made his first appearance since that game versus the Toffees as he came on as a substitute to replace Nathaniel Phillips with 20 minutes to go against Hertha, with his defensive partner Joe Gomez also introduced at the same time to make his own long-awaited return.
And after the match Van Dijk took to social media to share a heartfelt post, writing: "285 days ago, I started on a journey back towards playing.
"It’s hard to express how I am feeling, but it’s important to me that I say I feel blessed to have had the support of so many incredible people.
"The surgeon, my physios, coaches and staff who have been with me in my corner since day one. My teammates for giving me energy and keeping my head up. The fans for their love, support and encouragement. And most of all, my family because without them, I’d be nothing.
"Thank you. The work doesn’t stop now. It’s only just starting. We keep going!"
He also shared a passage from the Bible along with the caption: "Thankful."
In the end Van Dijk could not prevent Liverpool slipping to defeat in what was an entertaining match against their German opponents in Austria.
But that will come as little concern to supporters, who will no doubt just have been overjoyed to see their talisman back on the pitch.
Sadio Mane, Takumi Minamino and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored the Liverpool goals, and on Saturday the squad will travel to France for a training camp in Evian ahead of two 60-minute games against Bologna.
Reds boss Jurgen Klopp said after the match: “I saw the boys want and all this kind of stuff, there's no doubt. All the things I said before the game – that we are in training all the time.
"No doubt there was a lot of good things as well but, of course, conceding 4 is not an option – but for tonight we have to take it.
"Nearly all [players] are back, then during Evian they will pretty much all be back I think. That's good and then we can really start preparing, involve them all, get used to each other again and all this kind of stuff.
“Then we have a tricky start away at Norwich, that's how it is. They obviously were flying last year, they're probably still flying, so we have to be ready to fight – and I saw glimpses of a fight tonight.”
