He was already suspended, written off and mocked. But Ousmane Dembélé has impressively reported. The ex-dortmund will be the key to victory for Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final.
“I have the feeling that I finally found myself,” Dembélé recently told the French newspaper “Le Parisien”. The 28-year-old is clearly looking forward to the Champions League final in the Munich Allianz Arena. And probably not only because he could win his first Henkelpott, but because his personal period of suffering is over. It wasn’t that long ago that Dembélé was considered a false shopping, as a chance death, as exactly what many feared in Paris before moving from FC Barcelona in the summer of 2023.
But Dembélé not only achieved mental stability, but also playful. However, not on the right outer track, where he caused a sensation in 2016/17 in the service of Borussia Dortmund and developed a quick move to Barcelona. In the meantime, the French noble technician plays in the center forward position. “The idea of the century” called ex-Montpellier coach Jean-Louis Gasset the role exchange. All of the coaching colleague Luis Enrique was thanks to this idea.
At first the whole thing looked born out of necessity. PSG has gradually lost its top stars in the recent past. Only Neymar and Lionel Messi and last summer also Kylian Mbappé, who most recently appeared as a central striker. Of course, the capitals, which continued to boost financially by Qatar Sports Investments, bought a new center forward – specifically Gonçalo Ramos. But the absolute top quality and, above all, accuracy did not always put it onto the field. Dembélé, on the other hand, has been networking 26 times in 30 competitive games since January. Complete madness.
The move to the storm center also enables left wing Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who moved from Napoli to Paris for 70 million euros in January in January. Because Dembélé is not simply a center forward in the center and is waiting for balls. For this, he would lack classic striker attributes. Instead, he acts as a “false nine” like from the textbook. He goes deep, lets balls hit, pulls defenders away from the offside line and tears gaps for sidelines such as Kvaratskhelia.
Some will look at the use of a “wrong nine” instead of a physical target player in the storm center. But there are currently some large teams in Europe that consciously use this role. For example, Ferran Torres plays on nine at FC Barcelona and even Robert Lewandowski goes into the middle of the field much more often than in his time at Bayern. Arsenal has recently put on “false” strikers. The English champion Liverpool prefers to trust outer strikers such as Diogo Jota or Luis Díaz on nine than the classic center striker Darwin Núñez.
Dembélés agility in the ongoing movement as well as on the ball, of course, helps him immensely. You can’t take every X-like wing attacker to the center and hope that it will somehow go well. At the same time, the multitude of goals has certainly increased its self -confidence. Dembélé was still missing in the Champions League preliminary round against Arsenal in early October. Luis Enrique described it as a “best decision” that he made in 2024 because Dembélé was apparently stormed. Enrique’s decision in winter to put Dembélé on the nine was also bad.