It was a last-minute Inigo Martinez injury that saw Dean Huijsen called up to Spain’s national team. After his performance against the Netherlands on Sunday, don’t expect him to miss out in the future.
The 19-year-old was one of the brightest notes in another exciting week for Spanish football. Luis de la Fuente’s side will be in the Nations League final four in June after beating the Netherlands in a hard-fought quarter-final at the Mestalla in Valencia. A frantic game ended 2-2 after 90 minutes and 3-3 after extra time, to leave the tie deadlocked at 5-5 on aggregate, with the reigning European champions and Nations League title holders eventually going through 5-4 on penalties.
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Barcelona midfield star Pedri hit the decisive penalty, while teenage sensation Lamine Yamal scored an incredible goal that put Spain 3-2 up in extra time. But nobody impressed at the national team’s camp over the last week as much as Huijsen.
He played the full 120 minutes of the game, but the encapsulation of his talent arrived at the start of extra time, when he provided the assist for Yamal’s goal.
Huijsen received the ball in his own half to lead Spain’s build-up from the back, and it took him just a glance to spot Yamal asking for a pass behind the Dutch back line. The quality of his delivery was superb. It was an impeccable assist for Yamal, who then embellished it with his signature cut-inside move and far-post curler.
On a night when Spain were far from their best, Huijsen was a source of creativity from the very start, driving with the ball from the back, breaking lines with incisive passes and clearing with a no-nonsense attitude when needed.
The teenager touched the ball 116 times (the most among all players in the game) completing 90 passes (also the highest of anyone on the pitch) with a 90 per cent pass completion. He registered seven clearances and blocked a shot. No Dutchman was able to dribble past him across the two hours of game play.
“Dean is another great piece of news for Spanish football,” said manager De la Fuente in the post-match press conference. “It simply looks like he’s been at the elite level of football for many years. He has fitted so well with our group with his skill set but also his personal values.”
(Marcel van Dorst / EYE4images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
It is not easy to break into the manager’s plan — especially after this team’s Euros success last summer. De la Fuente has admitted he plans to stay true and loyal to the group of players who became champions of Europe in Germany.
Centre-back is now one of the most well-stocked positions in the squad. Robin Le Normand and Aymeric Laporte are De la Fuente’s top choices, alongside Dani Vivian, who missed this double-header against the Netherlands through injury. Pau Cubarsi is destined to be the fourth in contention, while the performances of Martinez and Raul Asencio this season granted them a slot ahead of Huijsen when De la Fuente made the initial squad announcement 10 days ago.
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But sources in Spain’s camp — speaking anonymously to protect relationships — admitted that it took barely a couple of training sessions before the coaching staff realised the youngster Bournemouth signed from Juventus last summer had to be given a proper chance. Last Thursday, Asencio was left out of the match day squad for the first leg instead of Huijsen.
“Once you earn the trust of the national manager and you prove to be a good fit for the team and the dressing room, you will hardly fall out of his radar — and Huijsen seems to have done that,” a source close to Spain’s dressing room told The Athletic.
Others highlighted Huijsen’s sense of calmness as one of his most impressive attributes — as if he is immune to pressure.
Destiny arranged for Bournemouth’s teenage star to make his senior international debut against the country of his birth.
Huijsen’s family moved from the Netherlands to Malaga when he was five and he lived there until he joined Juventus at age 16. He has represented the Netherlands in the past, captaining them at under-19 level, but the work put in behind the scenes by the Spanish FA and his upbringing in the country convinced him to switch his international allegiance.
“I feel Spanish — Spain is my home,” Huijsen told The Athletic in an exclusive interview last week. “If Spain doesn’t call me up, I will continue to be Spanish and if they don’t call me up in (the next) 20 years, I will continue to be Spanish. I don’t care.”
Huijsen replaced an injured Cubarsi in the first half of the tie’s first leg in Rotterdam on Thursday, and was booed by the Dutch fans every time he touched the ball during that 2-2 draw.
(Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)
“I was expecting it,” he said of that treatment to Spanish media Cadena SER. “Sometimes I can receive some annoying texts on social media about that, but I just focus on my game. It didn’t really have an impact on me, to be honest, I only did my thing. I could hear some noises in the background, but that’s just another part of football.”
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All this will only make his appeal across the football industry get sensibly bigger — if that’s possible.
The Athletic’s David Ornstein reported last Friday that Huijsen is expected to move on from Bournemouth this summer for a fee of £50million ($64.8m), which is the value of his release clause.
Chelsea have been monitoring him, Newcastle United have also been linked, and in recent weeks the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona have been reported as interested suitors.
And surely more will emerge after a week when Huijsen announced himself and showed that there might not be another teenage defensive prospect like him anywhere in the world.
(Top photo: Aitor Alcalde/Getty Images)
