Barca News
Ousmane Dembélé continues to be the footballer in Paris that he showed himself to be at Barça. With privileged conditions to determine matches, a unique ability to dribble, but with irregularity and lack of consistency that did not allow him to fully exploit everything he promised. But at PSG he has left behind one of his tormentors in Barcelona: injuries.
The French winger, who missed 19 games and was injured for 89 days last season with the Barça club, has not yet been injured in Paris . And that is great news for a footballer who bases practically his entire game on his explosiveness.
He still continues to show deficiencies in decision-making, the great cross that did not allow him to take a step further during his time at the Camp Nou. To date, he is still denied a goal and has only scored one goal in 30 games. More successful in passing, Dembélé is sustaining his season by shining as an assistant (11 assists on goals), standing out as the top assist in Ligue 1 with seven. But perhaps the most interesting thing about his time in Paris is that he is managing to stay away from injuries.
Although the great protagonist against Real Sociedad was Kylian Mbappé , the former Barça player played a fundamental role at the Real Arena . Luis Enrique placed him on the inside, as a ‘false’ nine , with the aim of constantly making the defense doubt whether to jump to defend the sides and leave him free on the inside or vice versa. Dembélé fulfilled his role wonderfully and the Asturian’s plan went perfectly.
Unfortunately, it is inevitable to think what would have happened with a Dembélé less affected by injuries. In his first year at Can Barça, in 2017, a rupture of the femoral biceps tendon in his left thigh left him sidelined for 20 games . That same season he would miss another seven games due to a muscle tear.
In the following season he had three different injuries. The first, at the beginning of 2019, a sprained ankle that kept him off the playing field for five games. A couple of weeks after recovering, he suffered another muscle tear in the biceps femoris of his left thigh, which resulted in another four absences. Finally, he once again suffered from the femoral biceps in his thigh, but this time on the right one, adding four more games away from the grass .
The 2019/20 season was his great ordeal . He started the course with a rupture of the fibers in his left thigh ( five games out ). Once recovered, he relapsed from muscle problems and missed another duel . Shortly after, he was injured against his former team, Borussia Dortmund. Another muscle tear in his thigh left him KO for 13 more duels . He returned at the beginning of February, suffered during training and his season would end there: he was absent for another 19 games .
In 2020/21, more of the same. Before closing 2020, the thigh caused problems again. Five crashes away, which would go to six when he was injured again in April . During Euro 2020, a disinsertion of the biceps tendon in his right knee kept him from enjoying football for 14 more games . He returned in November and after stepping on the grass again, a thigh injury and two other games without playing . Even the Coronavirus insisted on punishing him, removing him from a call for two more games . A tough history that closes his last Barça season, 2022/23, in which he missed 19 games due to another thigh injury .
That Dembélé can contribute many things is no surprise. But injuries and radical changes in his performance have always been a major question mark in his career. Will he be able to put his ordeal with injuries behind him once and for all in Paris? For the moment, luck is with him in this regard.
