Ivan Fresneda: Valladolid’s tough-tackling 18-year-old right-back
This summer, we are running a series profiling 50 exciting players under the age of 25 — who they are, how they play, and why they are attracting interest during this transfer window. You can find all our profiles so far here.
Already, among others, we have looked at a Rennes teenager with a Premier League dream, a Brighton 18-year-old who lives to score, and a dribble-happy Liverpool target at Nice.
This time last year, few people had heard of Ivan Fresneda. Not even within the Spanish game.
Now, that has changed. Suddenly, he is the young right-back being linked to the world’s biggest clubs, just 10 months after his La Liga debut for a side that ended up being relegated — an indication of his potential.
Just 18 years old, Fresneda epitomises composure on the ball and unwavering commitment of it. A strong, reliable worker who can invert into midfield, his ascent through the ranks at Real Valladolid has been rapid and points to a maturity and physicality beyond his years.
In December 2021, he became the first under-18s player to do so much as train with the club’s first team for almost a decade. The following week, he made his professional debut, aged 17 years, three months and eight days, against Real Betis in the Copa del Rey. Fresneda was five years younger than anyone else on the pitch that day, but it did not show.
A 79-minute appearance saw him crash into five tackles, valiantly defending his flank against Cristian Tello and Nabil Fekir, while also conducting himself with confidence on the ball, completing three dribbles and 79 per cent of his passes.
With Valladolid eventually losing the match 3-0 at home, the audacious drag-back that capped the teenager’s first-ever 45 minutes of senior-level action — taking both Sergio Canales and Fekir out of the game…
… before drawing a foul out of Borja Iglesias, drew the loudest cheer of the night.
Fresneda’s abilities quickly became clear. After a handful of B-team appearances, the teenager was drafted more regularly into the first team. An injury to Luis Perez created the chance for his La Liga bow last September, and Fresneda has clung onto that place ever since, ending last season with 18 league starts.
He was one of just seven players who began 2022-23 aged 17 or younger to play over 1,000 minutes of first-team football in Europe’s big five domestic leagues, illustrating his growing importance to the team.
Even if he is barely two-dozen games into his first-team career, multiple clubs around Europe, including Barcelona and AC Milan, are already convinced of his quality.
Despite his rapid rise, it has not all been plain sailing for Fresneda. The young full-back’s appeal comes less from immaculate defensive performances than it does from the scrappiness and courage he showed at the heart of one of Europe’s shakiest sides.
Valladolid were eventually relegated, agonisingly, on the final day of the La Liga season, having conceded 63 goals from an expected figure of 64.9, the second-worst defensive projection in Spain’s top flight. Only eight sides across the top five European leagues conceded more than their 15.2 shots per game, with 36.6 per cent of the attacking touches against them coming down Fresneda’s side of the pitch.
It was a baptism of fire, but Fresneda’s resolve shone through. His average of 2.5 tackles per game left him in the top 10 for La Liga full-backs last campaign, while his season total of just 13 fouls was impressively tidy.
As his tackles and interceptions map shows below, he was often pushed back into wide zones close to his penalty box. But even against wave after wave of attack, facing some of the world’s best one-v-one dribblers, Fresneda always seemed to relish the challenge.
With his athleticism and upper-body strength, Fresneda defends best when he can match the attacking player’s stride and get into a tussle with them for possession. Very difficult to shake off, he is a persistent sort who looks to hassle and barge opposing forwards away from goal, before reaching a leg around them for the ball.
Here, he is able to chase Mallorca winger Amath Ndiaye out of the penalty area and towards the touchline, grappling with him until he can poke the ball out of play.
And below in the reverse fixture, he finds himself locked in a battle with speed-dribbler Lee Kang-in, who nips in front of him to collect the ball at the corner flag. The pair wrestle for possession and the Mallorca winger manages to wriggle free, but Fresneda recovers with a strong, hooked challenge to send Lee to the ground and win a goal kick.
It is this ability to stick to players, keep pace with quick wingers and use his sturdy frame and long legs to battle for possession that could see Fresneda become a reliable wide defender at the top level.
That is particularly so when he is more aggressive — as he was when he made eight tackles against Real Madrid in December. Facing up to Vinicius Junior, he doggedly stuck to his task and tried to close the Brazilian down as quickly as possible, often moving to anticipate the pass to his man before it was played.
Vinicius Jr usually loves to exploit over-aggressive play, skipping through the challenge with his signature step-over move, but Fresneda’s long legs meant he found it much more difficult to escape throughout the game. Once again here, the young Valladolid full-back is on the Madrid winger’s back and reaches around to poke the ball away.
He is not infallible, but a fired-up Fresneda shows real defensive promise.
Despite his impressive tackling statistics, a closer look at the data reveals Fresneda to be quite a passive defender relative to the number of actions he faces.
Using the true tackles metric — a statistic that combines tackles, lost challenges and fouls to indicate how often a defender will ‘stick a foot in’ — we can possession-adjust the data, to allow for fairer comparison with defenders in more dominant sides who have to make fewer defensive actions per game.
At 5.7 true tackles per 1,000 opposition touches, Fresneda ranked 29th out of 53 La Liga full-backs, while his true interceptions score — combining interceptions with blocked passes — places him even lower, at 38th.
In short, he is not one to steam into challenges every single time, instead preferring to cover spaces, make blocks and pick up loose balls. When he does commit to one, however, Fresneda is a high-quality ball winner, succeeding in 75 per cent of those duels. Only one La Liga full-back — team-mate Luis Perez — had a better success rate than that last season.
The chart does reveal an area for improvement: Fresneda’s ability in the air. His 28 per cent win rate is low and he can lose the flight of the ball in the air, particularly on long, diagonal passes sent in behind him and into the path of his winger.
In a match against Girona, Fresneda backtracks…
…but misjudges his jump, allowing the ball to bounce over him as he swivels and readjusts.
While he’s an excellent battler on the ground, a handful of sides moved aerially dominant strikers over to his side last season — Joselu of Espanyol, Mallorca’s Vedat Muriqi, and Enes Unal of Getafe— to good effect.
Working to make sure he doesn’t get caught under the ball could give him the advantage in years to come.
All in all, however, for a player so young, with so little experience, and tasked with so much defending in a struggling side, Fresneda’s commitment and clean tackling are exciting. There are some very solid foundations in place.
In possession, as we saw earlier with that debut drag-back, Fresneda can be very adventurous, but he is generally calm and secure with the ball at his feet.
In Valladolid’s conventional back four, both full-backs are asked to stay wide, as reflected by Fresneda’s touch map from last season.
Despite this, he was happy to dribble into the half-spaces, often showing quick feet to chop inside and move possession forward.
A player who can defend in wide areas but also operates centrally is desirable for top-level clubs. At the back of a 3-2-2-3 system, what we have seen so far suggests Fresneda could play in the inverted full-back and wide centre-back roles.
When Fresneda brings the ball forward, he usually combines those quick feet and his pace with that physical bite, often going shoulder-to-shoulder with his man after knocking the ball into space. While his attacking output has not been prolific, he can burst into dangerous areas and deliver accurate crosses.
Here against Cadiz, Fresneda brings the ball down and produces a nice piece of skill to wrong-foot the defender and move to the byline…
Once again, he is able to win the tussle, shoving Brian Ocampo off the ball, before delivering for Shon Weissman, who misses a golden opportunity from 12 yards.
Like most parts of Fresneda’s game, his forward runs are spirited, if not consistently incisive just yet. He was unlucky not to provide any assists last season, but the raw materials are there.
Following Valladolid’s relegation, Fresneda’s buy-out clause has dropped to €20million (£17.2m; $21.8m). A bargain lies in wait for the team willing to take the chance.
Part of the Spain squad at the Under-19 European Championship in Malta, he might not be the finished article but his physical profile and self-assurance on the ball, remarkable at such a young age, surely set Fresneda up for a prosperous career at the top of the game.
