“Golden Ball” Ousmane Dembele: New role and emphasis on “simplicity”

On September 22, at the Golden Ball award ceremony organized by France Football Magazine in Paris, player Ousmane Dembele of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) surpassed Lamine Yamal of Barcelona and Mohammed Salah of Liverpool to win the prestigious Golden Ball award for the 2024-2025 season. Last year saw Dembele achieve a "quadruple" with the club, most notably leading PSG to their first Champions League title, along with 33 goals and 13 assists in all competitions.

Despite his impressive goalscoring record for a winger, if your criteria for a Ballon d'Or winner is a top goalscorer, Dembele is probably not the man you're looking for.

Ousmane Dembele's crowning moment

“It's not just the goals that matter,” he said in an interview with L'Equipe in 2023, insisting that he knew he could have scored more and that his modest goalscoring record at the time did not affect his mentality.

In the same interview, Dembele also said that he wants to be remembered as a great dribbler to watch, someone who you can turn on the TV to watch him dribble past opponents and score. Dembele’s priorities are clear: Dribble first, score later.

Dembele has never been considered an excellent goalscorer, he has not even scored 10 goals in the domestic league since his first season playing at Rennes in 2015-2016. His most outstanding achievement in all competitions is only the number 14 he achieved at Barcelona in the 2018-2019 season.

However, when he came to PSG and worked under coach Luis Enrique, everything began to change.

“Dembouz” was deployed as a false nine by the Spaniard midway through last season, and immediately adapted to the new role, scoring 27 goals in just 22 appearances in the winter and early spring. By the end of the season, Dembele had scored 35 goals in all competitions – just five fewer than he had in his five seasons at Barca, helping PSG to a historic “quadruple”. This form also helped him become the sixth French player in history to win the Ballon d’Or, joining Karim Benzema and Zinedine Zidane.

Dembele's second season in the City of Light did not start smoothly, typically his red card in the match against Bayern in the Champions League group stage. However, with the departure of Kylian Mbappe and the disappointing form of Goncalo Ramos and Lee Kang-In, Luis Enrique decided to put Dembele in the center forward position. He became PSG's main spearhead, continuously scoring important goals, with the highlight being 2 consecutive hat-tricks and the decisive goal against Man City.

Dembele scored a hat-trick against Stuttgart in the Champions League

Although this scoring form was not maintained until the end of the season, Dembele was still a key factor in bringing PSG to the top of Europe, with goals against Arsenal and Liverpool or 2 assists in the final helping the French representative impressively overcome Inter with a score of 5-0, thereby winning the Champions League for the first time. Coach Enrique even used him as an ideal role model for other players to follow, saying that in addition to influencing the match through contributing to goals, Dembele also worked extremely hard to press and strengthen PSG's defense.

From being considered a flashy, ineffective player, Ousmane Dembele has affirmed that: He is the best player in the world .

Source: https://cand.com.vn/van-hoa/qua-bong-vang-ousmane-dembele-vai-tro-moi-va-de-cao-su-don-gian-i782309/