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

Real Madrid have now officially signed the 20-year old center-back Dean Huijsen from Bournemouth, after the Spanish giants finalized the details with the player's camp and agreed to pay the $50 million release clause. Huijsen, who signed a contract running until the summer 2030, is a young prospect in European soccer, and only last season he moved from Juventus to the English side for around $15 million. One year later, he's on the way to make a big step joining Real Madrid. The Spanish side are ready to make more big changes this summer, as Carlo Ancelotti will leave Real Madrid starting from May 26, when he will join Brazil to become their national team head coach, while club owner Florentino Perez is expected to announce the arrival of Real Madrid legend Xabi Alonso as the new manager of the club.

As Xabi Alonso is due to take charge of Real Madrid ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup this summer, we can expect a lot of transfer movements at Madrid in the next weeks, starting with Huijsen and Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold, the latter who will leave the English side as a free agent and will also join the Spanish giants. Multiple clubs were willing to sign Huijsen this summer, and it's not hard to see why. He showed his skills in his first Premier League season, scoring three goals, and teams such as Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal emerged as candidates to sign him this summer before Real Madrid decided to jump into the race to sign the former Juventus defender. Here's what you need to know about Huijsen:

Early career

Huijsen was born in Amsterdam in 2005, and in 2024 he obtained 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 to play soccer as a kid, before moving to the Malaga academy.

In 2021, when he was 16, he moved to Turin in Italy as Juventus decided to sign him to play for the U-17 team, but he immediately started to play with the Juventus second team, who play in the third division. During the 2023-24 season, Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri decided to include him in the first team occasionally, and in October 2023, he made his debut in the Italian Serie A against AC Milan.

It later became the only official game he played with the Juventus first team. In January 2024, he moved on loan to AS Roma as then-Giallorossi coach Jose Mourinho suggested the club sign him on loan 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's one of the biggest prospects in football. He will be a very great player in the future."

He was right. Mourinho was sacked a few days after, but Daniele De Rossi, who took charge of 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 agreed terms with Bournemouth in July to sell the player, who joined the Premier League for the 2024-25 season.

Huijsen's strengths

Huijsen is considered a modern footballer and an aggressive defender, as he often goes outside the defensive line to intercept passes but also to create individual duels with the strikers before they are on the ball, as most of the players in his role do. He's a tall defender at 6-foot-6, and he often uses his height for the aerial duels (59.3% success rate in the Premier League this season) and ranks among the best defenders for aerial duels this season. As a modern defender, Huijsen can occasionally play outside his natural role, following the strikers in the midfield, which suits an aggressive style of play of the team, like Xabi Alonso used at Bayer Leverkusen.

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

Huijsen's weaknesses

Considering his young age, there is also room for improvements in some parts of his game, starting from discipline as his style of playing saw him receive six yellow cards this season in the Premier League, five for tactical fouls. He's third in the league for fouls (90) as well. While he handled the physicality of the English league pretty well in his season at Bournemouth, there is definitely space to make improvements when it comes to speed, as he could be occasionally be exposed if the team is playing with a high defensive line, as Xabi Alonso will probably do.

Overall, he's already a mature player for his age and the number of games he played at the professional level, but there are big chances he can make a great career at Real Madrid, especially under the Spanish coach who was able to improve a lot of young players during his spell in Germany.

How he fits in at Real Madrid

The Blancos are expected to make some changes in the defensive sector this summer, starting from the center back role, where Real Madrid should sign at least two players, considering the issues that faced Ancelotti's roster during the current season. As Eder Militao missed 49 games due to injuries and Dani Carvajal missed 53 for the same reason, the current defense is definitely not at its best.

Ancelotti had to move some midfielders like Federico Valverde and Eduardo Camavinga into different roles as he didn't have defenders available. The Italian manager also had to count on Raul Asencio, who made his debut at the club only this season, and paired with Antonio Rudiger for most of the 2024-25 season, while Jesus Vallejo was the backup option, who only played two La Liga matches for a total of 36 minutes.

For these reasons, we can expect Huijsen to 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.