Real Madrid’s acquisition of Dean Huijsen was the conclusion of a transfer race that, according to his agent Barat, included several major European clubs. Barat told AS: \u201cWhen Real Madrid came along, it was an easy decision: there were many clubs, but with Madrid there was no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barat says the move gathered pace after Huijsen completed two appearances with the Spanish national team and Juni Calafat, Real Madrid\u2019s chief scout, opened talks that soon developed into a formal offer. The transfer was finalised when the club activated a \u00a350 million ($66.4 million) release clause, a five-year contract that set a new club record by making Huijsen the most expensive defender in Real Madrid history and the first signing of the Xabi Alonso era.<\/p>\n
The agent has also acknowledged interest from Paris Saint-Germain, who were described as a \u201creal option\u201d by Barat in comments to RMC Sport in 2024. Barat added that Huijsen believed he would have seen more playing time in the Premier League under Andoni Iraola than under Luis Enrique in France. Conversations reportedly took place with Borussia Dortmund as well, and Huijsen’s breakout season with Bournemouth left him a sought-after prospect before Los Blancos completed the deal.<\/p>\n
Huijsen was thrown straight into action under Xabi Alonso at the FIFA Club World Cup. He featured in every group stage match and in the round of 16 and quarterfinal ties against Juventus and Dortmund respectively. A late red card in the quarterfinal versus Dortmund resulted in a suspension for the semifinal, and PSG went on to defeat Real Madrid to eliminate them from the tournament.<\/p>\n
Since then Huijsen has started every Real Madrid match to begin the 2025\u201326 season. That run will be interrupted on Sept. 20 as he serves a La Liga suspension for the red card received against Real Sociedad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barat: several major clubs wanted Dean Huijsen before Real Madrid triggered his \u00a350m release clause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,987],"tags":[983,1047,1034],"class_list":["post-2945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-real-madrid","tag-agents","tag-champions-league","tag-emerging-talent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}