Just under a year ago, the PSG manager Luis Enrique dropped Ousmane Dembele and left him in Paris ahead of their trip to face Arsenal in the Champions League.
Dembele and Enrique had fallen out after a disagreement a few days earlier and Enrique decided it would be best to leave the French forward out entirely.
‘If someone doesn’t comply or respect the expectations of the team, it means they are not prepared to play,’ said Enrique, when he arrived in London. ‘I am here to create a team and in the future that might include Ousmane Dembele, just to be clear,’ he insisted.
That future included Dembele as the starring act, operating as a false nine. PSG lost to Arsenal last October but come April, they were playing at the Emirates Stadium again. This time, in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. Dembélé scored the only goal of that clash and the 28-year-old finished the 2024-25 season with 35 goals and 16 assists across 53 matches as PSG won the treble, including their first ever Champions League title.
On that night in Munich after PSG thrashed Inter Milan 5-0, Enrique sang his praises even though Dembele didn’t score a goal. ‘I’d give the Ballon d’Or to Mr Ousmane Dembele,’ said Enrique.
‘The way he defended, only that can be worth the Ballon d’Or. This is how you lead a team – goals, titles, leadership, defending, how he was pressing… Ousmane is my Ballon d’Or. No doubts at all.’
Ousmane Dembele pictured in his teens – when his professionalism was often questioned
Dembele has grown to be crowned the world’s best player – and a Champions League winner
The French star was crowned winner of the Ballon d’Or at a glitzy ceremony in Paris
For the boy from the French town of Vernon in Normandy, born to a Mauritanian-Senegalese mother and a Malian father, the journey to the pinnacle of football was completed on Monday when he was crowned the winner of the men’s Ballon d’Or at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.
Dembele began his career at Rennes in north-west France before rejecting the Premier League to move to Borussia Dortmund aged 19. After a season there under Thomas Tuchel, he became the second-most expensive player in the world when he signed for Barcelona in a deal worth £135.5million in 2017.
In 2021 Xavi, who was Barcelona manager at the time insisted that ‘when used properly, Dembele could be the best player in the world’. But by 2023 after numerous injuries, Barcelona sold him to PSG for £43.5M. PSG felt it was a bargain for a player who was yet to peak and he fitted their criteria of wanting more French players. His friendship with Kylian Mbappe played a part in the move but when Mbappe left for Real Madrid in 2024, it paved the way for Dembele to become the star.
Julien Laurens, a French football expert, insists that Dembele was ‘a gem that needed to be polished in the right way and that’s what Enrique and PSG managed to do.’
‘When Enrique left him (Dembele) at home for the Arsenal game, it benefited Ousmane because he realised and started to understand what Enrique wanted and expected from him. That was the first turning point of the season because it was a power flex by Enrique but also a catalyst for Dembele,’ Laurens tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘The other key moment is his repositioning from a winger to a No 9. A lot of people who worked with him when he was young, including one of the first coaches he had at Rennes in Rolland Courbis, thought his best position was as a nine or ten but because he was so quick and technically gifted, it was easy to put him wide.
‘For Enrique to move him centrally and build the team around him was a big turning point – not just for Dembele but for the whole of PSG. When you look at the other Arsenal game, he was a completely different player and they were a different team,’ adds Laurens.
Those close to Dembele believe he is now finally fulfilling the immense potential they saw over a decade ago. There is a lovely clip from his teenage years at Rennes when Dembele is asked whether he is right footed or left footed.
Dembele was visibly emotional after beating Lamine Yamal to the top prize in Paris on Monday
Dembele is pictured with Lionel Messi and Nelson Semedo during his ill-fated Barcelona spell
The French forward has proven his worth from the initial high expectations at Rennes
‘Hmm, left,’ he says. The interviewer then asks why he takes penalties with his right foot. ‘Because I shoot better with my right,’ comes the response.
His penalty past Alisson when PSG knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League last season still does the rounds on social media, with Dembele shaping up to shoot with his left foot before changing his run up and scoring with his right.
‘Even when you ask Tuchel now about Dembele, his eyes spark up like “Oh my God.” You rarely see a talent like him, says Laurens. ‘That season at Dortmund was incredible and that’s why Barcelona spent so much. In the end, it wasn’t the right move for him but you can’t turn down Barcelona and playing with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez at the Camp Nou,’ he adds.
The talent has always been there but Dembele has realised he can no longer rely on that alone. At Barcelona, he became the club’s most-fined player in recent years and there were serious concerns over his discipline and professionalism. He sustained 14 muscle injuries in his time there, spending 784 days sidelined, but in the last few years has paid more attention to the marginal gains, taking on a nutritionist, chef and working with personal physios.
‘For a long time, Ousmane was so good that he didn’t need to focus on anything but playing football. He knew he could play PlayStation until 2am and still perform the next day,’ says a source close to him.
‘It was when things started to get difficult at Barcelona that he realised he wasn’t living the life of a professional player. It just took him a bit of time to mature. Getting married in 2021 and becoming a dad was a big thing as it made him more responsible and he began to see that discipline off the pitch was crucial to his success,’ the source adds.
Karim Benzema, the last Frenchman to win the Ballon d’Or, said he wished he knew about the impact of that discipline off the pitch, earlier than later, and those words have stuck with Dembele, who is the sixth Frenchman to take the accolade after Raymond Kopa (1958), Michel Platini (1983, 1984, 1985), Jean Pierre-Papin (1991), Zinedine Zidane (1998) and Benzema (2022). No other country has produced more Ballon d’Or winners.
Dembele is pictured on a PlayStation at an event – after criticism he faced earlier in his career
Dembele displays the Champions League trophy at the French Open at Roland Garros
He now has the Ballon d’Or to add to his collection after topping the list of the world’s best
When he was asked for the umpteenth time about Dembele and the Ballon d’Or last week, Enrique broke into tune singing ‘Ousmane, Ballon d’Or’. In the streets of Paris, PSG shirts with Dembele now fill the streets rather than those of Neymar and Mbappe.
‘We underestimate the role that randomness plays in careers and Luis Enrique and Dembele coming to PSG with Mbappe leaving is like the perfect storm,’ according to Ben Lyttleton – one of the first journalists to profile Dembele when he was 16 in an interview with COPA90.
That perfect storm allowed Enrique to create the path and there can be few complaints with the honour going to the best player in the best team over the past year. Nine players from PSG’s 2024-25 campaign were among the 30 nominees for the Ballon d’Or.
‘It is a reward too for the idea that the collective is first,’ says Laurens. Like Rodri with Man City last year, Dembele magnifies the collective of PSG. Lamine Yamal is closer to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in terms of talent but Ousmane has won the Champions League, the World Cup, La Liga, Ligue 1 and more.’
Across the last few years, others may have doubted whether Dembele would ever fulfil his potential. Not least when he was substituted before half-time during the 2022 World Cup Final. As his Instagram bio says: ‘Believe.’ Believe, he did. And that belief has helped Dembele complete his renaissance and cement his name alongside the greats of the game.
