Ousmane Dembele, the once-faltering wonderkid finally living up to the hype
As Ousmane Dembélé made his way up the rostrum of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris to receive the Ballon d’Or last night, one could be forgiven for thinking it was all an illusory reality unfolding in an alternate universe. This is, after all, a player who just a few years ago was a laughingstock and the subject of memes among football fans. At the time, he was still at Barcelona, struggling to live up to the hype and justify the then club-record €105 million Barca paid Borussia Dortmund for him back in 2017.
Dembélé spent just one season in the Bundesliga, where he set the league alight with his creativity and trickery, which oftentimes left defenders running frantically as if chasing shadows. At Dortmund and the previous year at Rennes—his boyhood club, where he first broke out onto the scene in the 2015/16 season—Dembélé had built himself a reputation as one of Europe's brightest young talents alongside countryman Kylian Mbappe.
Although the €105 million fee for him seemed overpriced—truthfully, it stemmed from Barcelona’s panic following Neymar’s sale to PSG—Dembélé had all the makings of a world-class player, the kind destined to sit at the table reserved for football’s elite in the decade to come.
Injuries, inconsistency, and attitude issues hindered him, and evidence of his prodigious talents only came sporadically in hand-size portions in those six seasons at Camp Nou. Barcelona ultimately cut their losses when PSG dialed in summer 2023 and in Dembélé's place, entrusted a 16-year-old Lamine Yamal, the same player who proved to be Dembélé's strongest competitor for this year’s Ballon d'or.
Dembélé's first year at PSG, under the shadow of Mbappe, was good. 6 goals and 12 assists in 42 matches was not spectacular, but respectable for a wide player. To go from that to 35 goals and 14 assists the next season as the main man following Mbappe's departure, and helping the Parisiens win their first ever Champions League in the process after a decade-plus of heartbreaks, is, to say the least, astonishing. To speak candidly, it was a Ballon d’Or-worthy season, an assessment echoed by journalists across the globe.
Watching edemption arc has been nothing short of beautiful, inspiring even. But his redemption journey didn’t happen overnight. According to those close to him, it began with him becoming a family man in the latter part of his time at Barcelona, and at PSG, the tactical switch from the wings to playing more centrally as a false nine, PSG’s focal point in attack, made a telling impact on his individual game and the team’s overall performance.
Beyond his goals and assists, Dembele’s willingness to press relentlessly and his tendency to drop deep to link up play and go wide at other times were instrumental to PSG’s success last season. It helped Luis Enrique execute his ideas, propelling the Parisiens past their opponents en route to a historic treble win, and for Dembélé, culminated in a deserved Ballon d’Or award—the high point of a once-faltering career.
