Cristhian Mosquera is an interesting case, starting a basketball business, then switching to futsal stone before going to the pitch 11 people. The Spanish U21 player is approaching a summer transfer contract to Arsenal after a great promotion in Valencia.
According to transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, Arsenal has reached an agreement to recruit Cristhian Mosquera. He is a product of Valencia Academy and one of the players on the final shortlist for the Golden Boy Award 2024.
The Gunners have been denied the offer to start a £ 12 million, but they have completed the deal for about £ 17 million, in the context of coach Mikel Arteta is seeking to reinforce the defense for the 2025/26 season.
Previously, Arsenal was also considered to be interested in Dean Huijsen, before this player moved from Bournemouth to Real Madrid. However, Mosquera is a cheaper alternative that many people think that possesses the potential not inferior to their Spanish compatriots.
In fact, Mosquera seems to be on the way to become the next success story produced from the famous training furnace of Valencia, which once produced legends like David Silva or Raul Albiol.
Any La Liga fans who have been following Mosquera have been playing regularly in the past two years can confirm that, and those who have just seen him for the first time in the U21 Europe this summer will be equally impressive. Arsenal is not only targeting a reserve player; Mosquera can completely compete with the main stone with William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes if they continue to grow at the current speed.
The question is: What makes Mosquera a promising talent?
From basketball to football
Born in Alicante, Spain in a Colombian family, Mosquera grew in the middle of the environment full of football. But according to Super Deporte, his first love was basketball. Instead of watching La Liga, Mosquera fascinated NBA on TV, and thanks to the outstanding height, he played extremely prominent basketball at home.
However, Mosquera's sports priority changed when one day, the uncle called to invite him to join the Futsal San Blas Canavate team, where his cousin was playing and the team was lacking. Since then, Mosquera has started to switch to football, prominent as a striker thanks to impressive long and physical steps.
After the SCD Carolinas and Hercules stages, Mosquera attracted the attention from Valencia. They quickly realized that he was more suitable for the role of defender and brought him into the young training system since 2016, when Mosquera was only 12 years old. Five years later, he had his debut to the reserve team, before he officially stepped on the first team in January 2022 under coach Jose Bordalas.
Mosquera had the first major kick in the 1-0 victory in the King Cup against CD Atletico Baleares, thereby becoming the youngest center-back who used to play for the first team Valencia, at the age of 17, 6 months and 23 days. His performance received praise from coach Bordalas: “Very good. He is the best player in the team today, without any doubt,” the Spanish strategist commented.
Finally, Mosquera became the mainstay of the squad, but he had to wait patiently to wait for the opportunity to play regularly. The main reason is because Bordalas coach was fired by Valencia at the end of the 2021/22 season.
Big turning point
Italian football legend Gennaro Gattuso was appointed to replace Jose Bordalas, but he did not create conditions for Cristhian Mosquera to grow to a new level. During the 7 months of leading Valencia, Gattuso only gave Mosquera out to the field in a match in La Liga. And surely the young defender was relieved when the former AC Milan star was fired in January 2023, after the team fell to the 14th place on the rankings.
During his successor Ruben Baraja, Mosquera's situation was not brighter at first when he was pushed back to team B. It was the injury of Gabriel Paulista, the number one midfielder of the main squad. When the 2023/24 season started, Baraja was forced to use Mosquera to replace Paulista. And that is the golden opportunity that Mosquera needs to start the top career in Valencia. He took advantage of it in a wonderful way.
The 2003 player played a total of 3,075 minutes in La Liga, most of the teenage players since Thibaut Courtois played 3.261 minutes for Atletico Madrid in the 2011/12 season. He contributed greatly to help Valencia reach the 9th place, making great progress compared to the 16th position of the previous season.
The dominance of Mosquera where the defense was evident by the fact that he reached the group of 5% of the La Liga player won the most hand -to -hand dispute situations. Valencia was so impressed that Gabriel Paulista joined Atletico Madrid on the form of free transfer in the middle of the season.
Rumors of transfer began to appear around Mosquera, but he rejected everything in an interview with the relevo newspaper in March 2024, and did not hesitate to “slant” Gattuso.
“Last season was a mess! This year was completely different. I was unable to play continuously for many years, and this year was finally given the opportunity.
“I did not lie, it was really difficult. But I was patient, not to let myself collapse and wait for my opportunity. I know it will come … Now I am completely focused on Valencia, ignoring all rumors people say. I'm happy here.”
Promote speed
Thanks to the booming season with Valencia, Mosquera was summoned to the Spanish Olympic team to attend the Paris Olympics. Despite the only one in the tournament, he still brought back the prestigious gold medal. However, that joy does not last long.
Although personal form does not decline, Valencia is seriously decided in the first half of the 2024/25 season. After the first 17 matches, the team won only 2 matches and fell to the relegation group. Coach Baraja was fired, and Carlos Corberan, who led West Brom and Olympiacos, was appointed to save the situation.
To reach the target of relegation, Corberan transferred the tactical diagram from 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-2-1, a more solid defense play. As a result, in the first 14 matches under the new coach, Valencia conceded 25 goals. Mosquera plays a key role in that certainty, not only when defending but also in the stage of deploying the ball from the lower route, which Corberan attaches great importance.
Valencia was unbeaten in the last 9 rounds of La Liga, ending the season in the 12th place. This is a miracle if looking at their miserable circumstances. With Mosquera, this is another successful season, when he also scored his first goal in his professional career in a 2-0 victory over Leganes at home.
It was not surprising that he was called in the U21 Spanish team to attend the U21 European U21, dating and center -back Cesar Tarrega. Although Spain was eliminated from the quarterfinals by the champion later, Mosquera still received many compliments for the excellent performance.
The head coach of the Spanish national team, Luis de La La Fuente, then confirmed that Mosquera decided to choose a Spanish coat instead of Colombia, and now he is aiming to attend the 2026 World Cup in North America.
Striking strengths
The former Valencia youth coach, Miguel Angel Angulo, once described Cristhian Mosquera as “a superior physical, good and mature player compared to his age”. And it is a completely accurate judgment. Mosquera possesses impressive breakthrough speed and very high play thinking, especially in the ability to choose positions.
These qualities help Mosquera almost never be defeated in a one -on -one situation. However, what really made him stand out from the rest was the ability to handle the ball.
Mosquera loves to rise from the defense and launched cross -broken passes, which he could do well with both legs. It is easy to imagine Mosquera will integrate smoothly into Arteta's tactical system at Arsenal, and with full physical foundation, he will not have difficulty adapting to the higher pace of the Premier League.
Things to improve
Despite possessing great potential, Mosquera is not yet a complete player. A fairly unexpected weakness is the ability to dispute in the air. Despite his height, he still does not know how to take advantage of his height to overwhelm his opponent and often fall into a disadvantage in the air phase.
In addition, sometimes the excessive high levels of Mosquera make Valencia reveal the space and easily counterattack. You need to improve the ability to make decisions: When to keep the ball, when to pass so as not to lose the ball easily.
The ability to support the first step of Mosquera is also unstable, especially when using the left – unfavorable leg. He is even more timid in his left foot, this may be anxiety with Arsenal if Arteta wants him to directly compete with Gabriel, the player deviates in the center of the defense.
A “new Willian Pocho”?
In fact, Mosquera has many similarities with both Gabriel and Saliba. Like Gabriel, he tends to defend by holding the position and covering the space instead of plunging into a direct dispute. This game has helped Mosquera achieve the win rate in the “real ball” phase up to 72.6% last season, according to statistics from The Athletic. In terms of style and breakthrough way from the lower route, Mosquera reminds Saliba.
However, the name that Mosquera is the most similar to Willian Pocho, the Ecuador center -back and PSG won the treble in the first season. Pocho is a symbol of the calmness in the French team defense, helping to shape the style of controlling the ball from the home field.
Although Mosquera has not yet reached the accuracy or decision level as Potch, he possesses similar qualities: the ability to recover speed, good judgment and a spirit that is not afraid to lead the match.
What will the future be like?
“The information I know is that Mosquera wants to come to Arsenal. He sees this as an ideal opportunity for his career,” Fabrizio Romano revealed on Podcast here we go last week. “Of course, there he will have to compete with Gabriel and Saliba, two of the best central defenders in the world. But what I heard is that Mosquera is not afraid of that.”
“He knows Arsenal have a lot of matches and that under Arteta, young players had a very good development opportunity. So Mosquera said 'agree' with Arsenal,” Romano added.
That confidence is a positive signal for the possibility of Mosquera will make an immediate impression at the Emirates. Despite being closely related to RB Leipzig, the place is almost guaranteed the main stone, Mosquera still chose to head to a more prestigious stop.
In addition, he is also a very flexible player, can play on both sides of the center -back and even the right defender if needed. In the context of Takehiro Tomiyasu has just broken up with the team, Mosquera can be gradually integrated from the position of defender, before Arteta tested his combination ability with Gabriel or Saliba in the center of the defense.
No matter what position, if Arsenal has completed the agreement with Valencia, their defense will become more complete than ever. Now is the time when Cristhian Mosquera stepped into light and challenged himself at the highest level.
