Best in the world? Reported Tottenham target outshone Virgil van Dijk

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Jose Mourinho reportedly wants Napoli’s Serie A and Champions League colossus Kalidou Koulibaly at Spurs.

Unfortunately for the late, great Annibale Frossi, Liverpool’s Champions League group-stage clash against Napoli last month came two decades too late.

A Gold medal winner at the 1936 Olympics and a two time Serie A champion with Inter Milan, it was Frossi who gave us one of the most famous quotes in Italian football history and planted the seeds of the famed ‘catenaccio’ style which formed the basis of his nation’s success for most of the late 20^th century.

“0-0 is the perfect result,” he said. “Because it is the expression of total balance between the attack and the defence of the two teams.”

Frossi died some 20 years ago, aged 87, but you can imagine that he’d have loved to witness two of the greatest centre-halves of their generation go head to head in front of a raucous Anfield crowd. Liverpool vs Napoli; Virgil van Dijk vs Kalidou Koulibaly – a clash of the defensive titans.

And while Liverpool vs Napoli finished 1-1 rather than 0-0, Koulibaly still produced the sort of colossal, commanding performance that would not have looked out of place in any era of Italian football.

While Ballon D’Or runner-up Van Dijk was left sprawling on the floor in the build up to Dries Mertens’ whip-crack opener, Napoli’s Senegalese man mountain was nigh-on faultless at the other end. On this evidence, he, rather than Liverpool’s flying Dutchman, is the best centre-back on the planet today.

Koulibaly won almost everything in the air and read Liverpool’s fearsome front three like a half-price paperback. If there was a better defensive performance in the Champions League this season, we are yet to see it.

So it’s no surprise that Jose Mourinho, who shares Frossi’s admiration for pragmatism, is a huge fan of an £84 million-rated centre-back capable of transforming Tottenham’s defence in the way Van Dijk has on Merseyside (El Desmarque).

And, if Mourinho can somehow convince Daniel Levy to stump up a club-record fee, the world’s best centre-back might soon be plying his trade in white rather than red.