Sergino Dest has emerged as a standout performer for , one of the surprise packages in the group stage. The PSV full-back is one of the Mauricio Pochettino's brightest stars and has successfully made the right flank his own. “I’m thrilled for him,” winger Konrad de la Fuente (born in Miami in 2001) told FIFA. The two shared a pitch for both the USA and Barcelona. De la Fuente insists, that Dest's performances are nothing new, saying, “He’s been performing at the highest level for years and he keeps showing his quality.”
The first time they lined up together, De la Fuente scored from a Dest assist in a U-20 friendly for the USA against France in March 2019. “He was technically and physically outstanding,” recalled De la Fuente, a Barcelona academy graduate who spent last season on loan at Ceuta in Spain’s second division from Swiss side Lausanne-Sport. “He was incredibly explosive.”
The pair always shared a room during U-20 national-team camps. “He was a completely normal, down-to-earth guy. We’d bring a gaming console and play together. I think I always beat him,” De la Fuente remembered with a smile. They went on to reach the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Poland 2019, with Chris Richards and Timothy Weah also part of the squad. “We both liked staying wide and taking defenders on,” he explained. “The coach kept telling us it was really important not to occupy the same spaces and that one of us always had to come inside while the other stayed wide.”
In 2020, Dest joined Barcelona from Ajax in a 20 million euro move. The transfer reunited the U-20 national team-mates at the Catalan club under Ronald Koeman. That November, less than a fortnight apart, De la Fuente made both his senior USA debut and his Barcelona bow, with Dest alongside him on each occasion. They became the first two American footballers to represent Barcelona.
At the end of that season, De la Fuente joined Olympique de Marseille, but the two have remained close friends. Last year, when Dest returned to Barcelona to recover from a serious knee injury, they met up for lunch. “He’s still very young and has so much potential,” said the Miami-born winger. Dest was born 25 years ago in Almere, around 30 kilometres from Amsterdam, to an American father and a Dutch mother. He already has more than 40 caps for the USA and won three Concacaf Nations League titles.
Dest played 78 times for Barcelona between 2020 and 2022, winning the Copa del Rey as a regular starter. David Prats (born in Barcelona in 1979), formerly one of Xavi Hernández’s assistants and now coach of Qatari outfit Al-Shamal, remembers a young player who was “eager to learn” and “physically gifted”.
“He was incredibly quick and, even though he wasn’t particularly tall, he was very strong,” Prats noted. “We saw huge potential because he could keep producing high-intensity runs and contributed so much going forward. He had an excellent change of pace, plus real character and confidence on the ball. At that stage, he needed to improve his decision-making and gain a better understanding of our playing model. He got into the final third so often, but sometimes struggled to make the right choice. Even so, he had enormous potential because of his physical strength, and he won so many one-on-one duels. We also felt he could help us as a winger in certain situations because he timed his runs so well.”
Prats also revealed that Dest would stay behind after training “on many occasions” to work on his decision-making, “especially when he wasn’t getting as many minutes”. He was still very young and lost momentum due to injury, while adapting to Barcelona’s playing model took time. He was loaned to AC Milan in September 2021, but Prats still highlights his extraordinary ability to cover the entire right flank and his outstanding physical attributes.
Operating down that right side, the PSV defender has established himself as one of the leaders of a team that topped Group D to reach the knockout stage. He has also become one of the main reasons why supporters are daring to dream of a deep run. Before the tournament, Dest himself aptly warned that the North Americans were more than capable of beating anyone on their day. On current evidence, few would disagree.
Sources: FIFA Official
