Cristhian Mosquera is our latest Gunner after becoming the fifth summer signing when he swapped Valencia for north London.
The 21-year-old is our third Spanish signing this transfer window, following compatriots Martin Zubimendi and Kepa Arrizabalaga through the door at the Sobha Realty Training Centre.
With his move now confirmed, let’s take a look at Cristhian’s journey so far and how he’s made his way to N5.
Get your Mosquera 25/26 home or away shirt at Arsenal Direct
Basketball Beginnings
Born to Colombian parents in Alicante, Spain, the young centre back initially took an interest in basketball, playing regularly as a child and watching the NBA.
Cristhian then joined futsal team San Blas Canavate before signing for local football team SCD Carolinas and then Hercules CF.
Valencia Move
After three years with Hercules, Valencia took notice and it didn’t take long for the La Liga club to snap up the prodigious talent, with Cristhian making the 160km move up the Spanish coast, joining in 2016 as a 12-year-old.
As well as progressing through the academy, the talented centre-back was also making appearances internationally in the Spanish system.
He amassed 26 caps from under-15 level up to under-19, as well as winning an under-18 competition for La Roja against Turkey, Romania and Portugal.
Making history
Having impressed throughout his time in the academy, Cristhian was handed his professional debut with Valencia B, the reserve side to the main side, starting in a 3-1 victory over CD Castellon B.
After 14 caps with the reserve side and a few bench appearances for the first team, Cristhian made his debut for Valencia in a Copa del Rey win over Atletico Baleares.
The centre back was just 17 years, six months and 23 days when he started the match, making him the youngest centre-back in the club’s history at the time, and the eighth-youngest player of all-time.
Tipped for the Top
The young defender has had plenty of eyes on him since emerging from the Valencia academy. In 2021, shortly before making his first team debut, Cristhian was named among the Guardian’s top 60 best young talents in world football.
The prestigious yearly list, which has featured the likes of Kai Havertz and Riccardo Calafiori, featured our newest centre-back.
“He’s characterised by a physical condition and good technical qualities, powerful in the air, and mature for his age,” Miguel-Ángel Angulo, the former Valencia player who coached the B team, said at the time.
Olympic Dreams
While flourishing at club level, Cristhian was selected to represent Spain at the Olympic Games in 2024. Taking place in France, Cristhian featured in Spain’s final group stage match against Egypt.
Spain would go on to win the final against France, helping the nation to a second gold medal in football.
Mr Reliable
Since breaking through into the Valencia first team, Cristhian hasn’t looked back. After making nine appearances in 2021/22 and 2022/23, he’s become an almost ever-present since the 2023/24 season.
Since the start of that season, no player under the age of 21 has made more appearances across Europe’s top five leagues with 73 turnouts.
He’s also comfortably played the most number of minutes, playing 6,394, almost 800 more minutes than second on the list, goalkeeper Guillaume Restes.
Standing out
One of Cristhian’s biggest strengths is facing an opponent and winning his tackles. In 2024/25, no player facing more than 50 dribbles had a better tackle success rate than our new centre back. Winning 76.7% of the 73 he faced throughout the campaign.
In the Premier League, our highest performing was William Saliba, who ranked second in the competition for true tackle success rate (79.5%), behind Nikola Milenkovic of Nottingham Forest (81%).
As well as winning the ball back, Cristhian was also positive in possession, making the seventh highest number of ball carries of 503 or progressive carries, 286, throughout the season.
Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
