This season in Europe has seen several young Americans make history. In Italy, Weston McKennie became the first American to sign for Juventus last August when the Bianconeri opted to bring him in on a one-year loan deal from Schalke. Due to his impressive performances in the middle of the park, the Texan native has now made history once again as he's been rewarded with a permanent deal that will cost La Vecchia Signora an estimated $22.3 million (€18.5m/£15.9m) plus an additional $7.8 million (€6.5m/£5.6m) should he hit certain milestones over his three year contract that will expire in June 2025.
Meanwhile, over in Spain, Sergino Dest made waves this past October when it was announced that he'd signed a five-year deal with Barcelona with a buy-out clause of €400 million. The initial deal cost the Catalan giants about €21 million plus an additional €5 million in add-ons, and made Dest, then only 19, the first American to don the famed Blaugrana kit.
Dest is also one of just five American internationals to ever play in La Liga. Just five.
Predictably, as the first ever American - but hopefully not the last - to play at Camp Nou, Dest has set numerous milestones. Among these highlights include:
- Becoming the first player to feature for the Blaugrana in La Liga, when he came on as a late sub for Jordi Alba during a one-all stalemate against Sevilla on October 4th
- Scoring the first goal by an American in the UCL - on November 24, 2020, Dest opened his account as Barcelona cruised to a 4-0 win over Eastern European outfit Dynamo Kiev in the group stages of this season's competition. That also makes him, naturally, the first American to score a professional goal of any kind, for the storied club
- Becoming the first to score a brace in any competition. On March 21st, Dest grabbed a double as Ronald Koeman's men easily swept aside Real Sociedad in a comfortable 6-1 road win to keep themselves in the hunt for the La Liga title
But the biggest achievement, certainly, has to be featuring in a game that some fans view as one of the biggest club football ties in the world: El Clasico.
On October 24, 2020, Dest was part of the Barcelona starting XI that took on Real Madrid at Camp Nou. Unfortunately, he wasn't on the winning side, as the Blaugrana ended up losing 3-1, but he nonetheless received high praise for his efforts, in particular how he did well when matched up against Real Madrid's speedy attacker Vinicius Jr.
This Saturday will see the two bitter rivals renew acquaintances, and Dest will be expected to feature in the starting XI. As things stand, Barcelona sit in second place, on 65 points, while Real Madrid are in third spot, two points back on 63. The Blaugrana are also in a great position to finally overtake current league leaders Atletico Madrid if they can pick up all three points at Los Blancos' home ground.
It will also be Dest's second El Clasico match. Having played for the full 90 minutes last October, there's only a few more milestones left for him to achieve here.
One, of course, is to assist a goal. The other, naturally, would be to score one himself.
The former would certainly please Barcelona and USMNT fans, but the latter would be, well, even better, obviously.
Will viewers see him achieve one - or possibly both - this Saturday?
We'll just have to wait and see. But who knows, someday, we may be seeing an "American Clasico" of sorts if Real Madrid do decide to take a gamble and finally opt to sign a USA-based player, perhaps.
