Two games into the season, the most convincing argument for Jose Mourinho’s early work at Real Madrid is not a goal, a system or a signing.
It is a 21-year-old centre-back who spent last summer being told he had gone backwards. The Dean Huijsen Real Madrid story has turned sharply, and on Sunday it takes him back to where it started.
According to Diario AS, as relayed by Madrid Universal, Huijsen is now viewed inside Valdebebas as more solid than at any point since he arrived — and, crucially, as Mourinho’s guaranteed starter in the middle of the defence.
Why the Dean Huijsen Real Madrid stock has risen so fast
The context matters. Huijsen’s first season at Los Blancos was, by his own reckoning, a disappointment. It ended with him left out of Spain’s World Cup-winning squad, which for a defender of his age and billing was a public verdict rather than a private one.
The reaction, per AS, has been the opposite of a sulk. Staff at Valdebebas have been struck by the change in his physique and by the daily standard he now sets in training. He came back looking for revalidation, and he has begun the campaign dominating.
Mourinho has responded in the only currency that counts. Huijsen and Ibrahima Konate have started both league games, and while Konate’s place is described as secure with Antonio Rudiger pushing him, it is the Spain international who is furthest up the pecking order.
The numbers behind the reputation
Wednesday’s 4-1 win over Real Sociedad is the clearest evidence yet, and not for the reasons you might expect from a centre-back.
Huijsen finished the night as Real Madrid’s most frequent passer, completing 69, and had more touches than anyone else on the pitch in white with 92 — ahead of Bernardo Silva on 88 and captain Federico Valverde on 69. He was third for recoveries with four. He was also, remarkably, third in the squad for efforts on goal, a consequence of Mourinho making him a target from set-pieces.
That is the tell. Mourinho has not simply picked Huijsen; he has rebuilt the team’s build-up around him. Mundo Deportivo’s player ratings marked him down as a defender who made no errors at the back and helped Madrid play out from it — unglamorous praise, and exactly the kind a manager wants.
It also explains why, as we wrote earlier this week, Mourinho appears to have already settled on his best back four of Denzel Dumfries, Konate, Huijsen and Marc Cucurella after only two matchdays.
Sunday takes him home
Which brings us to Malaga, newly back in the top flight and heading for the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday afternoon.
Huijsen was born in the Netherlands but raised in Marbella from a young age, and it was Malaga’s academy that developed him. Marca report that he has never hidden the connection, describing himself as malagueno and turning up in the blue-and-white stripes at Malaga games in recent seasons.
He is not the only one. Brahim Diaz left the same academy at 14 in 2013, when Manchester City paid a reported 300,000 euros to take him to England, and has spoken openly about wanting to play for his home-town club one day. Both men, as our Real Madrid vs Malaga team news noted, face their roots this weekend.
Madrid arrive top of the table with six points from six, and with a lengthy absentee list that still includes Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy, Eder Militao and Raul Asencio. Mourinho’s centre-back options are thinner than he would like, which makes Huijsen’s form less a luxury than a necessity.
A year ago that would have been a worry. On this evidence, it is the least of Real Madrid’s problems — and the boy from Marbella gets to prove it against the club that made him.
