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After years of wandering, Ousmane Dembélé finally seems ready to play, in Qatar, the leading roles in the France team. He should start again on Saturday against Denmark after his good performance against Australia.
“I want to be a protagonist of this World Cup.” Ousmane Dembélé does not hide it. He hopes to shine with the France team at the World Cup in Qatar and finally shine at the height of the talent that has been attributed to him since his debut. A talent that should still be at work against Denmark on Saturday November 23, but that injuries and wanderings have sometimes masked.
“I am ambitious, I want to start the matches, I want to score and score,” he calmly explained at a press conference, the day after the fine French victory against Australia where he sent an assist to Kylian Mbappe.
Already a better record than at his previous World Cup. On the ground, he had not contributed so much to the coronation of the Blues in Russia. Worse: holder in the first match, he lost the confidence of Didier Deschamps who then left him only bits of matches.
“When you compare the match in 2018, and the match on Tuesday (against Australia 4-1), there are a lot of changes. I’ve come back from a year and a half without injury. I took a bit of age, maturity in my game and off the field”, he recalls, honestly evoking his past weaknesses. So has the new Dembélé finally arrived?
From Rennes to second most expensive player in history
“Dembouze” has always been a nugget just waiting to shine in the eyes of all. Detected by the Stade Rennes training center at the age of 13, this native of Normandy has always been compared to the greatest by his coaches. Mikael Silvestre, former project manager for the Breton club, sees in him characteristics bringing him closer to young Cristiano Ronaldo, in an interview from 2016. Today, his president at FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, says that he is “better than Kylian Mbappé”.
This will-o’-the-wisp winger, terror of the defenses on these dribbles and these accelerations, nevertheless has a much more chaotic career than his companion in the French attack. After hatching and revealing himself to the world at Stade Rennes, he moved across the Rhine to Borussia Dortmund. A successful season with 6 goals, 12 assists and a title of best hope of the 2016-2017 championship.
But Ousmane Dembélé sees bigger. While FC Barcelona covets him, Borussia Dortmund blocks his departure. The player goes to the conflict by drying up the recovery. He finally won his case and the German club let the winger slip away in August 2017 for 105 million euros plus 40 in bonuses, making him at the time the second most expensive player in history after Neymar (222 million), whom he has the difficult task of replacing in Catalonia.
Serial injuries ruin his life
It is also the beginning of performances connected to alternating current. Because Ousmane has a string of injuries. According to a count by L’Équipe, since leaving Rennes, he has accumulated 705 days of absence due to injuries and missed 102 club matches. Outstanding statistics for a player of only 25 years old.
Behind this propensity for injury, it is the winger’s lifestyle that is often blamed. A chef was even sent by FC Barcelona for a time so that the striker could eat more in accordance with his job as a footballer. Combined with his propensity to arrive late, and it’s a reputation for lack of professionalism that sticks to Ousmane Dembélé’s skin.
MD | The players and the staff are doing everything to encourage Dembélé and take all the pressure off him so that he loses his blockages.
The club has put in a cook to allow him to eat a balanced diet and avoid fast food. pic.twitter.com/al3oSGEGoQ
— Blaugrana France (@FranceFCB) February 14, 2018
This was again singled out during the Barcelona press conference. He agreed that this has been a problem in the past, although he insisted that “it wasn’t the party either”. He said he had matured a lot. No doubt his marriage in 2021 then the birth of his daughter in September 2022 completed the growth of “Dembouze”.
In any case, in club, Ousmane Dembélé finally continues. He finished La Liga’s best passer in the 2021-2022 financial year and seems to have started on the same basis during the first part of the season thanks to his agreement with striker Robert Lewandowski. His coach Xavi is full of praise for him: “He is practically at the level of the best Neymar when he was at Barcelona. There are very few players like him,” he said.
Finally weigh in the workforce of the Blues
In Blue too, its history is written in sawtooth. Called for the first time in September 2016, the Norman signed only his second assist in 29 selections (4 goals) during the match against Australia. Blame it on injuries and irregularity.
However, since his first selection, Didier Deschamps has always called on him for his lists of major competitions. In addition to the World Cup, he had been called up for Euro-2021 where he appeared in the first two matches.
“He has this ability to always create problems for the opponent with his speed and his percussion”, praised Didier Deschamps in the pre-match conference and congratulated him: “Ousmane Dembélé is [aujourd’hui] a more built, more mature player.”
At Euro-2021, he had to leave his teammates, injured in the knee during the match against Hungary. A departure that had weighed on the group atmosphere, as the player is known for his qualities as a “host”, able to make the link between the groups, distilling good humor and making the link between the different groups.
“I like that everyone gets along in a group. It’s important. In 2018, it’s the group that won, not the individuals, even if it takes some. I like to set the mood but the coach takes me above all for my qualities as a footballer”, underlined Ousmane Dembélé.
Because such is the 2022 cuvée from Ousmane Dembélé, ripe to the point, serious and concentrated but without losing any of its refreshing naturalness. He proved it again with a few “punchlines” of which he has the secret, like when he jokes about the possibility of putting him at left back (“We’re going to concede a lot of goals if we do that”). Or when he teases his childhood friend Dayot Upamecano, who passed by the press conference desk a few minutes before: “I was playing against him in CM1/CM2 and he never beat me. He had to sign with Bayern to do so.”
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