Ousmane Dembele was preparing for Ballon d’Or: how he transformed his career at PSG to become the best player in the world | Football news

It was one of the lasting images of the Champions League final. Ousmane Dembele, ready in a sprint position, awaiting each steaper inter. He did not score in Munich but still managed to embody the evolution of Paris Saint-Germain.

“This is what a team means leading,” said Luis Enrique more enthusiastic. “Have you seen how he pressed? Tell me a new one in Europe who presses the goalkeeper and the central defender like that?” Dembele says it succinctly. “I changed a lot in my game.”

His own transformation is among the most remarkable individual redemption stories in football right now – and the victory of the Champions League is unlikely to be the end of it for Dembele. Next month, he could well be appointed winner of the male Ballon d’Or.

It would be deserved. His pressing, so surprising in this final, could be the only metric that he did not exceed last season. Finmer and creator of PSG, Dembele was alone as the most impactful player in European football. Look at this scattering graph …

And what is so amazing in all of this is that nobody really expected it. Not now, at least. Perhaps when he was a teenager in Rennes and their sports director at the time, Mikael Silvestre, called him the young most exciting player since Cristiano Ronaldo.

Perhaps even a few years later, when Barcelona made him the second most expensive player in history. But even then, the doubts about his attitude emerged. It took him up to 28 to achieve his potential after what he himself called the spoiled years.

Not later that in 2023, we remember having been part of one of the Borussia Dortmund offices, the club that sold Dembele to Barça in 2017, listening to Lothar Matthaus Opine on the reasons why Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz were sure to flourish. Mentality and support, he explained.

“We have different examples,” said the 1990 Golden Ball winner. “Dembele … crazy.” He then took a break before really accentuating this last word. “”Mad. “There was no perspective among journalists in the play. Everyone understood its meaning.

In Dortmund, the manner of its release colors its reputation. “He simply refuses to do his job,” said club CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke. “He cannot behave in this way,” said a teammate. “He is not allowed to do what he did,” said another.

In Barcelona, the model continued in the middle of a much more important examination of the Catalan press. He was reported from a particularly useless entourage, that he was late for team meetings, to play video games late at night, to neglect his diet.

In a commentary which presents itself with the remarks of Matthaus contrasting his environment with that of Musiala and Wirtz, the former chief of Dembele – which he dismissed – spoke of the player having “no structure around him” and this was considered a factor in his bad injury file.

Dembele has since recognized that this has led him to “lose five years of his life” because of his inability to appreciate the importance of preparation. Talent was still enough to keep it in the show, but not enough to make it the real star.

Nothing illustrates this as its role in the biggest and best game of all, the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar. Dembele gave a penalty and was transported before half-time. A career taking place under the spotlight but somehow exceeds it.

There is no doubt that Luis Enrique helped. The PSG coach did not avoid asking for more Dembele. “You have to go deeper and deeper to get the best version of Ousmane,” he said. “We had to do and say difficult things.”

But be careful not to deny the Dembele agency here. It was the player himself who had to make the adjustments. After all, Luis Enrique could not trigger the same change in the Kylian Mbappe. Dembele is the one who brought his game to another level.

“If you want to be a great player, you have to work. Your talent is not enough. I didn’t know it before.” Its late realization made for one of the most beautiful reversals of football, because this type of climb in mid-carrier simply does not occur.

Actors, musicians, presenters and politicians, they could be able to return to fashion, perhaps even to redeem themselves in the next act, but football is a youth game and there is rarely the moment of feedback. Place everything too late and it has disappeared.

Well, leopards might not change their spots, but they are perfectly advanced predators, ruthless hunters. With each goal that Dembele pursues, he underlines the change in him. Joining Matthaus as a Ballon d’Or winner would be an appropriate next step.

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