Earlier this week, Santi Denia announced his Spain squad for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, set to begin later this summer. On paper, it is an incredibly strong squad listed by La Rojita, although there was a notable name missing from the list of defenders.
Dean Huijsen is off the back of a promising loan spell at Roma, where he featured 14 times across all competitions last season. The 19-year-old is rated incredibly highly in Italy, and also within the Spanish Football Federation, who pushed to have him in Denia’s squad for the Olympics.
However, Relevo have reported that Juventus, Huijsen’s parent club, rejected the RFEF’s advances. Spanish clubs are unable to stop their players from being called up, but this rule does not apply to overseas sides, which means that Juventus are well within their rights to stop Huijsen from going.
A blow for Spain, although they do already have Pau Cubarsi, Cristhian Mosquera, Eric Garcia and Jon Pacheco as centre-back options for the Olympics – an embarrassment of riches, to say the least.
