Four years have passed since a teenage Real Madrid academy graduate started turning heads in La Liga and attracting interest from seemingly every major club in Europe.

Ivan Fresneda looked a serious prospect during his breakthrough 2022-23 campaign with Real Valladolid and soon became a regular fixture in the transfer gossip columns.

It felt inevitable that Fresneda would eventually end up at Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atletico Madrid. And if not one of Spain’s traditional giants, then surely one of the Premier League’s moneyed elite would come calling. Arsenal, still putting the pieces together under Mikel Arteta, were among those most frequently linked.

“Everyone would like to go to the best teams in the world and that is one of my ambitions, of course,” Fresneda said at the time, providing exactly the kind of quote that kept his name circulating throughout the transfer window.

Madrid-born Fresneda had spent four years honing his skills in Los Blancos’ famous La Fabrica academy as a youth before further developing with Leganes and Valladolid.

He needed only a few months of senior football to look like a player who wouldn’t be sticking around at newly-promoted, relegation-battling Valladolid for long.

Nothing underlined his potential quite like his performance against Real Madrid. Tasked with containing Vinicius Junior, the teenager excelled as Valladolid kept Carlo Ancelotti’s side scoreless for more than 80 minutes before eventually succumbing to a 2-0 defeat.

Valladolid’s season followed much the same pattern: plenty of fight, but not quite enough to survive. They went down by the finest of margins, finishing only three points behind 13th in a remarkably tight relegation battle.

Any hopes of keeping hold of their top prospect went up in smoke when their second-tier status was confirmed. Where would he end up? Back at Madrid? Atleti? Arsenal? Maybe an ambitious upwardly mobile club like an Aston Villa or a Newcastle United?

…No, Sporting.

In fairness, there was sound logic behind the move. Sporting had recently broken their long Primeira Liga title drought, were building something exciting and offered the youngster the chance to play European football.

But given the names that had dominated the speculation around Fresneda, few would’ve predicted Lisbon as his next stop.

At that point, rather than kick on like a Viktor Gyokeres and use Sporting as a stepping stone to superstardom, Fresneda kind of completely fell off the map. A shoulder injury kept him out of action for a few months, but he didn’t seem a natural wingback in Ruben Amorim’s system and didn’t appear trusted to feature.

Sporting claimed a second league title under Amorim, but Fresneda made a grand total of five substitute appearances, tallying 35 minutes in his debut season.

He was integrated a bit more into the first team the following season when they retained their crown, chipping in with three goals, but he was still a relatively peripheral figure with just 11 league starts.

More tellingly, the transfer rumours had almost completely dried up. Had Fresneda’s career developed as expected, you’d imagine he’d have become a regular fixture once again after two seasons in Portugal. A forgotten man, he’d even stopped representing Spain at youth level.

But last season he started to make inroads. Regular appearances for La Roja’s Under-21s again. Regular appearances in the Primeira Liga. He also started 10 games in the Champions League, including their victory over PSG, five-goal comeback against Bodo/Glimt and the first leg of their narrowly lost quarter-final against Arsenal. The kind of nights he’d always appeared destined for.

And now he’s finally represented his country at senior level, reuniting with his former youth-level manager Luis de la Fuente.

“I’ve had a very good few weeks, learning a lot, enjoying myself a lot with the group,” Fresneda said of his long-awaited Spain debut, a relatively routine 3-1 victory over Czechia.

“I have a very good relationship with Pedro Porro, it seems like I’ve been following him for a while now, I learn a lot from him, and of course if anyone wants to go to the Valladolid youth academy and Sporting de Portugal.”

His debut wasn’t spectacular, but it was quietly competent. Not looking out of place for the world champions is a compliment in itself, and this offered a taste of how he might fit alongside the likes of Dani Olmo, Rodri, Pedri and Lamine Yamal.

He lined up behind Yamal on the right flank and was treated to the perfect view of his world-class early opener; “I was blown away,” Fresneda admitted afterwards.

Right on cue, Barcelona are reportedly interested again. Fresneda is still only 22 and, for all the bumps along the way, his career is beginning to resemble the one that looked mapped out for him as a teenager.

His rise stalled, but it never stopped. Jules Kounde might soon have some serious competition on his hands.