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For Sergino Dest, skills aren’t an occasional flourish he does every now and then in safe moments of a match.
Others might view rabonas, elasticos, or no-look passes as showboating. For Dest, they’re the reason he plays the game.
The boy who grew up studying clips of Brazilian stars like Ronaldinho, then spending hours on cramped tarmac courts trying to emulate them, is now an established USMNT international. At just 23, he has played 32 times for his country, has a string of top clubs on his CV and a title win under his belt.
But it’s all meaningless unless he can express himself. In his eyes, he is one of the few entertainers in the current elite game. “I think I’m one of the players who gives enjoyment back to the fans,” he says. “They want to see this. They want to see the nice stuff.”
Producing the “nice stuff” has served Dest well. The attacking full-back rose from Ajax’s academy to Barcelona, AC Milan and now PSV Eindhoven, where he helped Peter Bosz’s formidable side win the title last term and reach the Champions League last 16.
Born in Almere, a city in the Netherlands to a Dutch mother and an American serviceman father, he opted to play international football for the United States and had an integral role in the USMNT’s strong 2022 World Cup, becoming an influential performer along with Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams.
This is Sergino Dest, in his own words…
Dest is right-footed but can do things with his left that many full-backs would envy. Such is his ability with either foot, he has often switched easily between left-back and right-back during his career, including spells at wide midfield in Italy (see graphic below).
“I can do some things with my left but my best is my right,” he says. “Then, I played only two games at right-back last season. The boss likes me at left-back and when I come back next season it’ll be the same. It’s not a problem. I think I can do both and it’s a great step to develop a little bit. In the long term, right-back is my position but it’s good for your career and coaches to be versatile.
“At left-back, it’s a little bit different. With some aspects, I need a little more time. Crossing from that side is different but the advantage is when I come inside. I need to practise my shooting but coming inside, it can really make a difference.
“I try to be unpredictable for defenders.”
We are speaking in Eindhoven, the day after PSV’s 3-1 defeat by Juventus in Turin, their first match of this season’s Champions League campaign. Domestically, they are once again top of the Eredivisie table and unbeaten — but they are without their flamboyant full-back. Dest suffered a knee ligament injury in training in April, causing him to miss the final matches of PSV’s season and the Copa America, which was held in the U.S.
He is halfway through his rehabilitation and hopes to be fit to return in March.
His absence from the game has made his heart grow fonder for it, and he lights up while watching clips from his career. We start with one of his seven assists in the Eredivisie last season — for the final goal in a 5-1 win against AZ Alkmaar on April 6.
“I was looking first and there was almost nobody in the box,” he says of the moment in the 91st minute when he decided to dish out a bit more torture for AZ full-back David Moller Wolfe. “So I’m thinking, ‘Shall I act like I’m going to cross it so he’s not focused on the ball anymore?’.
“Then I can push it forward and run, and it worked. The angle for him to still turn was difficult because he wasn’t focusing on the ball anymore.
“I’m really good at reading body positions and knowing what defenders might take. Then I know which side I should be and what the angle should be.
“Here, for example, he just thought I would cross it, so I tried to make it unexpected. But I knew he was a bit behind me. The first thing you’re going to do if I play the ball next to you is look at the ball. You’re not looking at me anymore. Then I make it difficult.
“It was the debut of the boy who scored (Jesper Uneken), so the perfect debut with a goal. It’s an easy pass.”
Dest admits he was not necessarily sticking to Bosz’s commands at this point…
“The coach had told me right before that play to take it easy and calm down because we were already comfortably ahead and I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’. Then I saw the ball going forward and ran.
“After the goal, he was shaking his head. I always want to be playing. If I’m really tired, OK, but if I still have energy and we can score one or two more, why not?
“Even if it had ended up 4-2, what does it matter? It’s weighing up the risk.”
Another play he regularly deploys is to dummy inside, before shifting back onto the outside and crossing with his left foot. In this example against Excelsior, he fakes to cross before cutting the ball towards the byline with the opponent wrong-footed and then sending over a perfect delivery for the striker Luuk de Jong to score.
“I’m trying to look at his (the defender’s) body. When I turn and take it calmly, he’s not focusing on the ball,” he explains. “He thinks nothing is going to happen and there you go again… I do this so many times.
“The body shape of people is the most important. Even if I actually went inside, then I would see there is space to go. There is less space on the outside because he is focused on that (at first), but now his body position is inside and he loses the outside, thinking it’s done.
“So I go. It’s easy for me to pass people one-v-one because I look so carefully at their body position, and it’s from experience — you just feel it.
“If someone is leaning a little bit back then I think, ‘OK, now I can sprint’. Or, ‘OK, he’s really focusing on the outside’, then it’s go inside. If he wasn’t making so much effort to block the ball I would have already crossed it. He makes my mind up.”
Dest explains why it is so hard to second-guess a tricky opponent. “It’s difficult for the defender because I can do both (go inside or outside),” he says. “That’s why I want to improve my shot as well because I can be even more dangerous. If they don’t take me and I score, then all the players and coaches will be mad at him.”
We will return to the topic of goals, but what about the basics of defending?
He is aware of the perception in some quarters that his defensive work is not at the same level as his attacking. Dest accepts he has work to do to tighten his defence but he enjoys watching some clips of him up against Borussia Dortmund’s rapid winger Donyell Malen in the Champions League last season.
“I know he’s fast and what he’s going to do but I was hungry, too,” he says. “It was a good duel.”
We watch a passage when Malen tried, and failed, to bustle past Dest. “He tried to pull me and I put out my arm,” he says. “I’m good in these situations because I’m quick and I can turn fast. If I hadn’t got my arm out he would have gone past me — that was very important and it’s pure experience.
“I am quick and fast. Some people say, ‘He (Dest) is really technical, good attacking but not so good defensively’, but it’s not easy to play against me. One-v-one, I can defend.”
Dest feels he may suffer in comparison to defenders who are perceived as being more physical.
“Some people want aggression,” he says. “They have people like Mats Hummels, for example, a good defender who is really aggressive. But he can get passed by maybe two or three times in a game, whereas I am not that aggressive but a player might only go past me once.
“Which is better depends on how you look at it — being like that (Hummels)? Or holding your man so he can’t make any crosses or always has to switch to the other side?
“If I dive in and take the ball from him then I’m judged as a good defender. But if I make him play the ball back then not so much.”
Ultimately, Dortmund were too much for PSV — they drew 1-1 in Eindhoven and lost 2-0 in Germany — but Dest believes he performed well.
“One-v-one with players, it’s always a 50/50,” he says. “I don’t know if you remember my first Clasico against Vinicius Junior? In 90 minutes, he only went past me once. Otherwise, he was in my pocket the whole game. Suddenly then I’m a good defender?
“It’s about being focused. If I’m in a good headspace at a good club where people appreciate me, then it’s going to be difficult for these wingers, man.”
The conversation turns to the USMNT’s 0-0 draw with England in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup. “Luke Shaw and Raheem Sterling were down my side — they didn’t do anything,” he says.
But Dest does not pretend he cannot improve defensively, especially his positioning. “Things like being with the defensive line, reading the plays.”
Dest has plenty on his to-do list when he is fit again this season, including one task he relishes a little less.
At some stage, he has to wash the car of Rob Maas, one of PSV’s assistant coaches, after the pair made a bet last season. If Dest scored three or more league goals, Maas had to pay for a full tank of petrol for the defender’s car. If he scored fewer than three, he had to grab a sponge and bucket and clean Maas’ car.
“He got lucky that I got injured,” he says. “We had four more games remaining. Then in the game I scored against Go Ahead Eagles, I also hit the post. I am a man of my word so I’ll do it when my knee is better.”
A smaller sample size than he would have liked, then, but they were impressive strikes. Take the second of them, the only goal of that 1-0 win over Go Ahead Eagles in March.
“This is maybe one of my best club goals,” he says, watching it back.
Olivier Boscagli pings a pass out to him in space on the left…
Dest controls it perfectly with his chest…
And stands up the Go Ahead defender…
Before driving into a tight space between two players…
And curling a shot into the far corner to give PSV the lead.
“In that game, nobody could stop me in one-v-ones,” he says. “People were falling on the ground, pulling me. My team-mates should have played me the ball more in that game.
“We only won 1-0 but I was playing so well that any time I got the ball, it was dangerous. I had some nice compliments at the end from the Go Ahead players. It was fun.”
After his goal, he pointed to the sky. “The celebration was because my uncle died a couple of days before the game. We were very close. I said to one of the physios, ‘Today I’m going to score for him’.”
His first goal that season was made in America, even if it was reminiscent of one of Wales’ finest. The third of a 4-0 win over AZ, it was assisted by another exciting USMNT international, Malik Tillman, and had the hallmarks of one of Gareth Bale’s marauding runs and finishes.
“At this point, I wasn’t looking at Luuk at all,” says Dest of PSV’s prolific centre-forward De Jong, who was bursting into the box as he ran onto Tillman’s pass.
“I was just like, ‘One good touch and just shoot’. I could miss and then Luuk would be mad at me, but no problem — I scored.
“When I took that touch and the defender came, I had already sprinted enough and was tired. I couldn’t cut in any more, so decided to shoot.
“It was a nice finish. I enjoyed that moment.”
There have been two goals on international duty, too. His memorable first came in a friendly win over Jamaica in March 2021.
“At first I was thinking, ‘Shall I dribble or pass?’, and then I tried to cut in,” he says.
“I realised I have a lot of space and was open, so it was just — ‘OK, shoot right away’.
“I’m not really aware of where the ‘keeper is, just the goal. I had been practising my shot a lot back then. I need to get back to that.”
Dest celebrated with Christian Pulisic by tapping an imaginary watch on their wrists. “It was a thing me and Pulisic had worked on — ‘it’s our time’,” he says. “But at this moment, we’re not playing so well (UMSNT). I wanted to play Copa America and I’m looking forward to the World Cup.”
It was no coincidence, he says, that he was scoring for club and country in 2021.
“During the Covid-19 quarantine, I had so much time off, so I was practising my shooting constantly,” he says. “I was with one friend and we’d go to Almere City’s training ground and just drill shooting, dribbling and crossing.”
Nobody else in the USMNT roster can claim to have had a goal set up for them by one of the game’s finest-ever players, but Dest quickly developed a strong rapport with Lionel Messi at Barcelona. He signed for the Catalan giants when he was 19 years old in 2020 for an initial €21million (£18.9m; $23.4m in 2020).
He scored twice in a 6-1 win against Real Sociedad in March 2021, when Messi also scored twice.
“With Messi, you’ve got to run because then he’ll give it to you,” says Dest. “Unfortunately, it didn’t happen more often because for the first couple of months, you’ve got to understand him, and then he left (Messi moved to Paris Saint-Germain in August that year).
“I had felt like (if he stayed) the next season I would have had an even better relationship with him.
“He does things that would go wrong for other players, so you don’t expect it at first. For example, this assist, he waits so long that you think it’s not coming anymore.
“Even the defenders think that… and then suddenly he does it.
“Him delaying it gives me more time to run into a better position and they can’t catch me anymore.”
As someone who observed Messi up close, what does Dest think sets him apart?
“It’s how he sees spaces, and he can put people in positions where all they need to do is apply the little finishing touch,” he says. “One time I played left-back, I saw Messi going inside and I was running and was so open.
“I was thinking, ‘Now I know why it’s so easy just for Jordi Alba to run into space and get the ball and be free’. You’re playing in La Liga but it felt like playing in Eredivisie against a relegation team the amount of space you had because of how good Messi’s passing was. I would have loved more time with him.
“We had built rapport. I started to feel more comfortable in the team and knew what I had to do. I was more prepared, mature and developed, and felt the second season would be more successful.”
There was plenty to learn from one of Barcelona’s other decorated stars: the left-back Alba, who took Dest under his wing that first season.
“Alba always told me, ‘The only thing that can bring you down is your concentration’,” he says. “I know he’s right. If I’m concentrating then I’m a top player and very consistent.
“It was the first time I lived outside of the country, first time I lived alone, with different players and big players.
“It’s not easy to get everything right in one year. I was really confident when I arrived but if you play a bad pass early and get players shouting at you, it hits your confidence. They don’t really know you, so they say to play it simple but I need confidence in me to show my quality.”
Dest, the first USMNT international to play for Barcelona, signed a five-year deal with a reported buyout clause set at €400m — but his time at Camp Nou ended prematurely after the manager who signed him, Ronald Koeman, was replaced by club great Xavi in November 2021.
“When Xavi came I didn’t get fair opportunities anymore, and my confidence level was a little lower,” he says. “I didn’t feel appreciated anymore. I never feel like it’s really personal with coaches. They always want their kind of players.
“When Xavi came, a lot of Spanish players were called up — but I never had the feeling that I wasn’t good enough, or that I left because I couldn’t hack it.
“On the last day of the season at Barca, the coach (Xavi) said, ‘Hey, we’re counting on you next season. You don’t have to worry about what you hear in the media, we’re counting on you’.
“I went away on vacation happy, thinking, ‘He finally has confidence in me. Next season I’m going to kill it’. Then the next conversation when I’m back was: ‘It’s better that you leave’. It felt really weird.
“You’ve got to accept it. It’s difficult but now I’m here. I want to play at the highest level again.”
In September 2022, Dest moved on loan to another major European club, AC Milan, in search of regular football, but his exit from Spain weighed heavily on him.
“I loved it but just wasn’t ready,” he says. “It was a really big lesson. If I go to another place, I have to be mentally ready.”
Dest did not find it easy convincing the then-Milan head coach Stefano Pioli that he should be a regular. He started just four games for Milan, including a 3-0 Champions League group-stage loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge that October.
“That night I played my worst game ever. I was new in the team and the players didn’t understand my playing style. With one-twos and stuff, I didn’t feel the connection, and I was unfocused — just not with the game. It still sticks with me.
“I give myself a three (out of 10) that night. I was bad, man, and I know it. I accept it.
“I learned a lot from it. Later, I got in a rhythm in the team that was really good. I was one of the top guys in training and then started playing and they gave me the ball more on the right side. We had Rafael Leao on the left. Then I played a good World Cup but when I came back, I had a few issues with the coach.”
Dest had intended to learn Italian but his strained relationship with Pioli left him wondering if it was worth it.
“I couldn’t communicate with him,” he says. “He speaks only Italian, so we had to have an interpreter. I didn’t play much and being on loan, I wasn’t so motivated to learn Italian. I began to think I wouldn’t be there that long.
“Mentally, I wasn’t ready. I was too much in my head about Barca and I didn’t fully appreciate what a big club Milan is.
“I hadn’t left Barca the right way and I felt hurt. Milan would have been a perfect club. It’s unfortunate how it happened. I was 21. I didn’t even understand why I wasn’t playing at the time. I thought they’d brought me on loan to play.
“I’ve felt everything at the highest level and I know what to do to get back there.”
Exciting moments. They are what he lives for on the field and the more jaw-droppingly skilful, the better.
One of his favourite skills is the rabona, when your kicking leg goes behind your standing leg before making contact with the ball.
We watch a cross he made against NEC Nijmegen in September 2023 during a 4-0 win at Philips Stadion. It very nearly resulted in a goal.
“The rabona wasn’t one I learned on the street,” he says. “It was when I was with the second team of Ajax and I saw a team-mate doing it and asked him ‘How do you do it but get the ball so high?’. So he showed me, I practised a lot. At first I couldn’t get the right height on the ball but eventually I got the power.”
For Dest, the cue to do a rabona cross is dictated by the circumstances in which he receives the ball and can set himself.
“When the ball comes in these moments and I don’t feel like my steps come naturally, then this (the rabona) is what happens,” he explains.
“You can do it just to show off but if my steps don’t come out properly, it’s a solution. Naturally, you would take two or three big steps but here I only made two and a half, so it just came naturally. I didn’t plan on doing it.
“If you practise and you know these moments, then it will work out — but if you’re scared and over-plan it, it can go wrong. If you don’t think about it then it rarely goes wrong.”
“It should have been a goal because it wasn’t ever intended for him (Johan Bakayoko), it was for Luuk. He could have scored it. Bakayoko was too close.”
Dest emphasises that doing skills such as rabonas during a game cannot just be about showing off.
“The ends have to justify the means,” he says. “I’ve seen other players do it in training and the cross is too high or low — if you can’t get it right you’re better off not doing it.
“The coach (Bosz) said, ‘If I was that defender, I’d have broken your legs’,” Dest laughs. “I said, ‘Yeah but it was a good cross right?’, and he laughed.
We move on to the elastico (a skill that is also known as flip-flap), when the player pushes the ball in one direction with their foot before taking another touch very soon after to drastically change the direction of the ball.
The example we watch is from late on against Arsenal in the 1-1 draw in the Champions League group stage last year.
“He was trying to get really short on me, so I knew when I made a movement he would go with it.
“There were players inside so I thought I had to beat him outside and that’s why the skill looks so clean — I knew what I was doing.”
His team-mate Jordan Teze, circled with his hands on his head, clearly enjoyed it.
“I don’t practise skills that much now,” says Dest. “It’s already in my system.”
It helps playing for a team that dominated the Dutch top flight so ruthlessly last term (PSV lost only one league game all season). In February, he set up Tillman with a fine run and multiple one-twos before a no-look chop pass that allowed his USMNT team-mate to score.
“They (the PEC Zwolle players) were all walking backwards already and I felt the one-twos coming nicely for us,” he says. “I had so much space it felt like being on the streets.”
Dest starts wide on the left and cuts inside to exchange passes with Tillman…
Then he links up with De Jong on the edge of the box…
He runs on to De Jong’s return ball and then, while looking towards the right side of the pitch, plays a chopped pass with his standing leg in the opposite direction to Tillman…
This completely wrongfoots the Zwolle defence and Tillman has a straightforward finish to make it 4-0…
“When I find that joy and confidence you see my best level,” says Dest. “I’d do that for the USMNT if I felt it was right. Check out my dribble against Ghana. I go past four players and then get fouled after a nutmeg as well.”
Dest takes genuine pride in being an entertainer, a maverick. For him, the modern game is in danger of losing the ability to provoke moments of awe and delight.
“When you were younger you looked up to these players with skills,” he says. “Nowadays so many players want to just do it simple. It’s not as much fun to watch football.
“A lot of players don’t think. Robots. Nobody wants to take risks.
“Entertaining is why I wanted to play football — not just because I wanted to play tactical all the time.”
We watch a TikTok clip created by an American soccer podcast, Scuffed, with a song dedicated to Dest and his ‘sauce’ (skills) — particularly that elastico against Arsenal.
“That’s funny,” he says. “Everyone enjoys that kind of skill and it went viral. The Champions League showed it so many times and it gets PSV more attention.
“I like the (admiring) reaction of my team-mates on the bench too.”
He hopes his showboating can inspire youngsters as he was by Ronaldinho, and he is putting his money where his mouth is in terms of creating opportunities for kids to practise more. This week, he opened his own street soccer court in Almere, the city where he grew up.
“It’ll be called ‘Sergino Dest Court’,” he says. “I’ve donated it for the new generation in the city and I’m proud that I was able to do it. When I was young I wished there was someone who could have opened a new pitch so we could play outside more. My goal is to find some new talent and kids with great technical skills but also so they get outdoors more often.
“I don’t want us to forget the good old times when we get outside and play together. Whenever I had summer break or I wasn’t in training as a kid I was outside playing.”
Dest, who is excited at the prospect of playing under the new USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino, wants to open a court in the U.S. too, once he has found the right location.
“Ideally before the World Cup,” he says. “Maybe in a city with better weather, perhaps Miami it would fit better. There is already a bit of football culture with the South Americans and they bring in the Americans. So it has to be like this European size so they feel what it is like to play in small spaces.”
Although the idea of a future managerial career doesn’t hold much appeal, Dest is open to the idea of being an elite skills coach — helping others find those solutions with the ball at their feet.
The more flamboyant, the better.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
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