Is the eighteen-year-old Dutchman a turning point in the Giallorossi’s transfer strategy?
Dean Huijsen he takes the field with his socks lowered, he plays on the centre-left but his favorite foot is the right, he is tall but his size does not allow him to dominate the attackers in individual duels. When he can he plays in advance to break the line. They are all docile little features, which seem to fit together to produce an interesting defender, who catches the attention of even the laziest. An atypical center back, who you don’t see often.
Until last week his name probably didn’t mean anything to you, and that’s not strange. Before making his debut against Atalanta, Huijsen had only played twelve minutes in Serie A: on October 22nd he came on at the end of the match against Milan, at San Siro, to help Juventus close ranks. Allegri had brought him in to replace Gatti to make the team even more careful, so as not to lose the threads of his DNA. In short, his entry was aimed at protecting a meaning spiritual of the defense, with clean and thoughtful plays.
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But where does this blond, glassy-eyed defender come from, more interested in technique than in malice? In these hours there is a lot of talk about him for the transfer on dry loan to Roma of José Mourinho, who came on at the last minute to snatch him away from his initial destination, Frosinone.
Huijsen was born in 2005 and since his name was linked to the colors of Roma it has become difficult not to go back to Mourinho’s words after the crushing defeat in Bologna: «Maybe it’s better to work with young people who have potential» He said at the end of the game. «I would like to continue in Rome and I am willing to think differently, we must consider the FPF».
Of course, how much Mourinho believes what he says – jokes that end up becoming gospel, and at the same time prophecies that become bullshit – is a question still debated, but perhaps the purchase of Huijsen is the first breach in the philosophy of the transfer market that Roma has implemented in recent years: take players expertssometimes even campsupon expiration of the contract or when the conditions allowed loans with advantageous redemptions.
In a sense, with Dean Huijsen Roma makes an exception: takes a young and reckless defender, who moves with degrees of freedom like a libero from the seventies rather than a ruler of the skies. Huijsen’s inexperience is the driving force behind his defensive research, he makes counterintuitive choices and at times seems to start off with the ball just for the sake of showing off his aesthetics in risky areas. The other side of the coin, that is, of the grim profiles that had been placed side by side. The market started with rumors of a possible arrival in yellow-red of Bonucci for the final six months of his career, another “safe second hand”, old Serie A reservist, in the end Tiago Pinto closed for Huijsen who was born 18 years later.
Does the purchase of Huijsen mean something about Roma’s tactical wishes, or is it just their surrender in the face of a shortage of the winter budget?
Huijsen is Dutch and his interpretation of the role could not be more utilitarian, guided by deep reasoning in his readings, defensive and otherwise. He is an elegant and proactive defenderwho loves to touch many balls even when he is under pressure – establishing himself as the team’s shadow director – and his responsibilities also evolve into offensive adventures: below is the goal scored against Foggia in last year’s semi-final second leg Italian Serie C Cup.
In that case the classic diagonal cut starting from the left preceded a shot that went off under the Apulian crossbar. For Huijsen it was the double goal (sic!), after the rebound that had equalized the score in the first half, and his crowning as a cult defender of the minor leagues.
He doesn’t always succeed in certain excellent passes or shots at the intersection, but he has exceptional confidence in his abilities. Huijsen’s best defensive skill is his anticipation in the open field: he genuinely enjoys disappearing from behind the attacker and reappearing in front of him, playing on the edge of time and vision.
It’s hard to see him committing crafty interventions or bad, since his goal is the ball and when he can’t get there he stalls. He also intercepts in the penalty area, and these two rejected against Pineto they are proof of this, because he defends with intelligence, without the athletic or mental peaks of an experienced defender.
This is also why his arrival in Rome is surprising: so far Mourinho’s three-man defense has focused on ruthlessness and nihilism – and so the profiles of the players to focus on were chosen: muscular men always ready to spend the yellow card, to defend collapsing into the area. Instead, Huijsen’s pleasant place is the midfield line, he wants to attack his opponents with speed. He does not yet have the ferocity of a goalscorer in the final meters, nor does he yet master the art of positioning well. In Juventus Next Gen he took on such an active role that you could see him retreating when the team lost the ball and not being able to return to the area, as if he were a midfielder loaned to the defence.
Huijsen he has grown to Spain, where his family moved when he was five years old. He made his debut in Costa Unida, then stabilized at Malaga. In his football it is easy to trace the contaminations of positional play, when he breaks the line and offers to receive the pressing from behind to facilitate the construction. All mechanisms avoided by Roma’s realist culture, which has become imbued with a cathartic taste for nervousness and defensive apprehension: will it be of any use to have it for six months?
It is an ambiguous purchase, the interpretation of which escapes immediately, but let’s try to make some hypotheses on this absurd transfer market union.
Due to Smalling’s injury and N’Dicka’s departure for the Africa Cup of Nations, Roma are short of defenders and, having no budget to operate, they trusted the first impressions that Huijsen gave to the scouting departments: before signing with Juventus were on his trail Real Madrid e Barcelona. It will not solve the distressing problems of the Giallorossi and their contradictions in reaggression, but Huijsen’s arrival could stretch Roma forward especially with the ball. In the three defenders he made his debut on the right due to the absence of Ndicka and the injuries of Smalling and Llorente but it would not be strange if, with the return of the Ivorian, he ended up playing the center of the line, providing a technical rather than mental guide on defense, a revisitation of the old number five. Perhaps Mourinho will give him, as he would have liked to do with Bonucci, carte blanche to manipulate the opposing offensive line.
At the first ball he touched in Serie A he anticipated Leao with arrogance, moving forward without fear. For the rest he managed the attack of Milan, who were with ten men, letting himself be guided by teammates who were more experienced than him. A couple of safe supports on Kostic and a nice left-handed strike looking for Milik between the lines. Side note: beautiful the hill on Kalulu to protect the throw-in and gain seconds in the last tense scuffles of the match.
«We have started to reap the fruits of the work started ten years ago» he said Gianluca Pessotto, head of the Juventus youth sector, in February 2023. «There are some Next Gen players who can make the leap. Huijsen above all”. An endorsement that pushed Massimiliano Allegri to join him on a permanent basis with the first team throughout this season. In January Huijsen seemed destined for Frosinone, where he would find his former teammates Soulé, Kaio Jorge and Barrenechea: the healthiest environment, perhaps, to immerse himself in the Piranhesque ecosystem of Serie A, to make mistakes without being relegated as a reserve.
Dean Huijsen, on the other hand, doesn’t have time: forty-eight hours after landing in Rome he found himself having to make his debut against Atalanta and left quite well, albeit inserted in a totally experimental defense. He is not a central defender like many others, and we hope to realize this again soon. This time he was on the pitches of Serie A and Europa League.