Who is Dean Huijsen? Real Madrid acquire 20-year-old Bournemouth defender ahead of summer’s Club World Cup

Real Madrid has now officially signed the 20-year-old Center-Back Dean Huijsen from Bournemouth, after the Spanish giants have completed the details with the player’s camp and agreed to pay the release clause of $ 50 million. Huijsen, who signed a contract that runs until the summer of 2030, is a young prospect in European football, and only last season did he move from Juventus to the English side for around $ 15 million. A year later he is on his way to take a big step at Real Madrid. The Spanish side is ready to make more major changes this summer, because Carlo Ancelotti Real Madrid leaves from 26 May, When he will join Brazil to become their head coach of the national teamWhile club owner Florentino Perez is expected Announce the arrival of Real Madrid -legend Xabi Alonso as the new manager of the club.

Since Xabi Alonso will take the lead for Real Madrid for the FIFA Club World Cup this summer this summer, we can expect many transfer movements in Madrid in the coming weeks, starting with Huijsen and Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold, the last to leave the Spanish side as a free agent and will also become a member of on the member of the Spanish. Several clubs were willing to sign Huijsen this summer, and it is not difficult to see why. He showed his skills in his first Premier League season, scored three goals, and teams such as Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal emerged as candidates to sign him this summer before Real Madrid decided to jump in the race to sign the former Juventus defender. This is what you need to know about Huijsen:

Early career

Huijsen was born in Amsterdam in 2005, and in 2024 he got Spanish citizenship and decided to play for the Spanish national team, where he made his official debut in March 2025. At five years old he moved to Spain with his family to Marbella, where he started playing as a child before he went to the Malaga Academy.

In 2021, when he was 16, he moved to Turin in Italy when Juventus decided to sign him to play for the U-17 team, but he immediately started playing with the Sweetus Second Team, which played in the third division. During the 2023-24 season, Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri decided to occasionally include him in the first team, and in October 2023 he debuted in the Italian Serie A against AC Milan.

It later became the only official game he played with the first team of Juventus. In January 2024 he went on loan to AS Roma when the then-Giallorossi coach Jose Mourinho suggested that the club signed him for the rest of the season. The Portuguese manager spoke about Huijsen before his arrival during a press conference and said: “Dean Huijsen has 10 minutes of football in the Serie A, but he is one of the biggest prospects in football. He will be a very great player in the future.”

He was right. Mourinho was fired a few days later, but Daniele de Rossi, who took the lead over the team, trusted his talent and at the end of the season he played 14 games and also scored two goals. In the summer of 2024 he moved back to Juventus, but the Italian side corresponded to Bournemouth in July to sell the player who became a member of the Premier League for the 2024-25 season.

Huijsen’s Strengths

Huijsen is considered a modern football player and an aggressive defender, because he often goes beyond the line of defense to intercept passes, but also to make individual duels with the strikers before they are at the ball, as most players put in his role. He is a long defender on 6-foot-6, and he often uses his length for the air duels (59.3% success rate in the Premier League this season) and this season is one of the best defenders for air duels. As a modern defender, Huijsen can occasionally play outside his natural role, according to the strikers in midfield, which fits with an aggressive playing style of the team, such as Xabi Alonso used in Bayer Leverkusen.

Huijsen also plays comfortably with both feet on the ball, and his completion rate is the highest among Bournemouth players who start more than two Premier League matches (84.3%). Thanks to this skill, he can become an option when his team attacks, because his build -up games can become even more important if he is asked to bypass the midfield line with his passes.

Huijsen’s weaknesses

Given his young age, there is also room for improvements in some parts of his game, starting at discipline when his playing style saw him six yellow cards in the Premier League this season, five for tactical errors. He is also third in the competition for errors (90). Although he treated the physicality of the English League in his season in Bournemouth, there is certainly room to make improvements when it comes to speed, because he can occasionally be exposed if the team plays with a high line of defense, as Xabi Alonso is likely to do.

In general, he is already an adult player for his age and the number of games that he played at a professional level, but there are great opportunities that he can make a great career at Real Madrid, especially among the Spanish coach who was able to improve many young players during his enchantment in Germany.

How he fits in real madrid

The Blancos is expected to make some changes to the defensive sector this summer, starting at the role of Center Back, where Real Madrid should sign at least two players, given the problems with Ancelotti’s schedule during the current season. While Eer Militao missed 49 games due to injuries and Dani Carvajal missed 53 for the same reason, the current defense is certainly not at its best.

Ancelotti had to move some midfielders such as Federico Valverde and Eduardo Camavinga to different roles because he had no defenders available. The Italian manager also had to count on Raul Asencio, who only debuted at the club this season, and most of the 2024-25 season with Antonio Rudiger in combination with Antonio Rudiger, while Jesus Vallejo was the backup option, who played only two La Liga matches for a total of 36 minutes.

For these reasons we can expect that Huijsen will become a central player under Xabi Alonso, but the number of games will probably depend on who else will join the Spanish giants in the summer and whether they will sign more defenders.