Okoro Daniel O.
When Dembele said “he is home,” after signing for Paris Saint-German during a dramatic transfer from FC Barcelona, he probably thought, “Oh, yeah. I’ve got my star French brother by my side whom we gon’ roast the Europe together!”
But that wasn’t the case anymore, Mbappe left and now, Dembele is stuck.
After the attempt to model the trio of Messi, Neymar and Mbappe (MNM) by PSG which on the long run didn’t turned out as expected by the club and football lovers around the world, the post-MNM era had the recruitment of former Barcelona’s treble winner coach, Luis Enrique, as their new head coach.
…whose first season at the club (PSG) was fantastic. He delivered three additional trophies to the PSG’s cabinet and nearly won them a treble.
Don’t you think it’s high time we start talking about PSG and their obsession with wanting to buy everything from Barcelona? Players, head coach…
Perhaps, someday, they’ll propose to buy FC Barcelona’s hospital so to accommodate Dembele. LOL, just kidding.
So before I digressed, PSG signed Luis Enrique as their new head coach after sacking Christopher Galtier.
If anybody says PSG signed Dembele as a potential replacement for Mbappe, they might be right. Because come to think of it, Dembele, just like Mbappe, is endowed with speed, he is fast and can quickly move the ball from one post to the other. Talking about 1v1 take-ons, Dembele did have quite a measurable amount on his CV.
I know you’re about to say “What about his finishing?” Oh, please, don’t go there. Everyone knows Dembele is terrible at making decisions when in front of goalposts.
In fact, till date, many FC Barcelona fans around the world still holds the terrible memory he gave them during the 2018/19 UCL semi-final campaign against Liverpool at Camp Nou where he couldn’t locate the back of the net after Messi had done everything else that needed to be done to get Dembele facing an empty goalpost with the ball. That, indeed, was a sad memory for anyone to behold.
Fast-forward, Ernesto Valverde left, Quique Setién left, Ronald Koeman came, he left. And right there was Xavi, a sparkling new FC Barcelona coach, fresh out from Qatar with a tough job staring at him right in the face at a club he played for and became its legend. He accepted it anyway.
Notwithstanding the fact that Dembele spent majority of his days at the FC Barcelona’s hospital, Xavi trusted him and counted him amongst the warriors in his project.
A year later, Dembele with Xavi would went on to win the almighty La Liga trophy after effortlessly taking them from 12th position to the second position in his half-met season—a sinking ship led by Koeman’s mastery.
New season came and right in the face was a deal from PSG staring at Dembele in the face. Would he take it?
“No, he wouldn’t,” everyone at FC Barcelona probably said that, including lovers of the clubs all around the world. But, what about Dembele? Are they all together on the same thinking page? I don’t think so.
We saw it played out opposite. Dembele damned every consequences and took the deal irrespective of the newfound love he and the FC Barcelona fans were building after bringing back two trophies to the Nou Camp.
Here we go! Dembele finally became a PSG player. And that’s it.
Now that Dembele is here at PSG, where is Mbappe? Gone. Far away to Spain in Real Madrid. In the absence of Mbappe, will Dembele shine?
“…And now, I thought to myself that it’s the time to come here, to Paris, in France, back home. I have lots of friends here, I have my family, so for me, it was important to come back.”
— Dembele (August 12, 2023) via PSG interview.
Dembele first complete season at PSG scored only 6 goals (1 in French cup, 3 in Ligue 1 and 2 in the UCL) with 10 assists.
The Spain Dembele rejected has become Mbappe’s fortress. Football can be so funny…
Do you think Dembele made the right decision retiring from FC Barcelona to PSG? Let’s talk about it in the comment section below.