Dembélé is a disconcerting player. For better and for worse. On and off the field. Unpredictable in his football actions and in his personal decisions. Always surprising. And that makes him a danger to rivals. And in a double-edged sword for his coach. The French winger arrived at Barça in the midst of Bartomeu’s waste after Neymar’s flight to PSG. The then Blaugrana president, pressed to find a replacement for the Brazilian, paid a total of 105 million fixed plus 40 in variables to Borussia Dortmund in August 2017. His performance, due to injuries, never lived up to expectations. In fact, during the five seasons of his first contract he missed a whopping 102 games due to physical problems and was out for 695 days.
This summer he renewed earning less after several months of tug-of-war with the club (he became ‘punished’ without entering the call as a pressure measure) and he only continues at the Camp Nou because Xavi always considered him the best in the world in assumption. Now that he begins his sixth season dressed as a Blaugrana, it seems that Dembélé has transformed. With exemplary behavior (away from the indiscipline of the past) and offering the best version of himself on the pitch, he has become an undisputed starter in the new Barça’s trident along with Raphinha and Lewandowski. Forgetting the injuries (he hasn’t been in the infirmary for more than eight months) he is getting closer to being that unbalanced footballer that the coach was betting so much on. He is so focused that he has even dared to give his first interview since he signed for Barça. An interview that, of course, has not disappointed.
Dembélé acknowledges that his beginnings in Barcelona were very difficult and that it was difficult for him to understand that to be a great player “you have to work.” He also explains that there came a time when he made “a click & rdquor; so as not to ruin his career and now he even has a personal trainer and works out at home. He praises Xavi (“Everything is special with him”) and assures that the coach’s words (“He told me he was very good, but that he had to change his mentality”) have helped him a lot in his transformation. He dreams of playing many more years at Barça and points out that if he is at the Camp Nou it is to win the Champions League: “I came for that & rdquor ;. The new Dembélé, who has very clear ideas, is a great signing.