At 21, Ousmane Dembele's career was almost over. Now, at 29, the French attacker is showing why he's the reigning Ballon d'Or.
For a lot of young players, playing with Lionel Messi at Barcelona was the dream. The Frenchman was living that dream. It was that very dream that had propelled him from Rennes in the Ligue Un to the brightest lights in the sport via Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga. But that dream had very quickly turned into a nightmare. It began after Dembele had become one of the most expensive purchases in the history of the sport: well over 100 million as the Catalan club sought a star name to replace the departing Neymar.
An injury-hit first season saw him score only four times for the Spanish club. Doubts had already crept in. Everything was called into question. The club started leaking stories to the press. The media attacked his attitude. "Sad and individualistic," was how a publication had described the French winger.
There were more such stories before PSG saw an opportunity to bring him back home in 2023 in a cut-price deal. At the time, it felt like this was going to be Dembele's make-or-break move. One of the sport's great 21st-century talents would either become a bit-part player in a larger industrial machine or he would become one of the many beating hearts for club and country. It's fair to say that he has become the latter. He has won back-to-back Champions Leagues for PSG. For his efforts, he was awarded the Ballon d'Or last year. For Les Bleus, he makes that front four complete. A sum greater than their parts.
Across his first 59 caps for the national team, he had netted seven times. In his last six appearances — all of them coming in the US at the World Cup — he has netted five times. He's making up for lost time. In a sort of ironic way, his first year at PSG was overshadowed by the attacking talents of Mbappe. However, once the Frenchman left for Real Madrid, Dembele has kind of become the first among equals in Paris.
The season his national team skipper left for Madrid, the winger, adept at playing as a 10 or a nine, scored 34 times and created 16 goals for his colleagues. All that immense potential had finally been unlocked. Most of it was down to a manager who believed in him and invested in him. Some of it goes back to Dembele learning his lessons from his time at Barcelona.
"Dembele has always been a phenomenon," his club coach Luis Enrique had said last year. "What happens is that you have to go deeper and deeper to get the best version of Ousmane. We have had to do and say difficult things. Ousmane is a leader, but a leader by example, not by words. Have you seen how he pressed? Tell me a nine in Europe who presses the goalkeeper and the centre-back like that. When you press like that as a leader, the rest just have to follow."
Some of that appetite, in Dembele's own words, came as a result of his Barcelona frailties. There used to be reports of spending too much time on gaming consoles and turning up late to training. Now, he's an ultra-professional and a team man.
It's how he has rediscovered himself for the national team, even though he won the World Cup with them in 2018. Even though Mbappe is the main man for the national team, the 29-year-old is an important cog in the wheel. He can interchange with any of the other members of that attacking unit, and that in itself is a huge plus for them. He can dribble as well as finish with both feet and can beat his man on the inside and the outside.
Here's an example from the World Cup. Against Norway, for his opener, he bought a yard of space after dribbling with his left foot before lashing home with his right from inside the box. For the other two goals, it was the opposite. Against Morocco, his starting position was just left off centre before finishing with his right. At the elite level, these are uncommon traits. It's what makes him such a priceless asset for Deschamps' side.
In Dallas, the cameras will be focussing on Mbappe and Lamine Yamal. But don't forget Dembele, the current holder of the sport's most well known individual trophy.
