The France international played a pivotal role in Paris Saint-Germain's treble triumph – but only after years of disappointing displays
GOAL's World-Class Club for 2025 has just been published – and there are six new members, including four players from treble-winning Paris Saint-Germain. Ousmane Dembele isn't one of them, though, and his exclusion will no doubt surprise – and maybe even anger – a lot of readers.
After all, Dembele is the clear favourite to win this year's Ballon d'Or – and how could we not consider the 'best player in the world' this year a world-class player? Well, the devil lies not only in the detail of our definition of the very subjective term 'world-class' and the stipulations within our selection process – but also the duality of Dembele.
As we all know, two seemingly conflicting statements can be simultaneously true – and particularly when it comes to one of the most contradictory characters in football, a fantastic but frustrating forward who has belatedly realised his potential and yet still has something to prove…
AFP'Wasted' years
Lionel Messi never had any doubts over Dembele's world-class potential. The winger was, as the Argentine pointed out all the way back in 2018, "a phenomenon on the field". The only problem was how Dembele conducted himself off it.
There were worrying reports of ill-discipline even during his breakout season at Borussia Dortmund, while his behaviour at Barcelona became a near-constant cause for concern in Catalunya. Even accounting for the fact that he was just a teenager when he joined the Blaugrana, Dembele admitted himself that he "wasted" five years of his career at Camp Nou due to a total lack of professionalism.
He was repeatedly late for team meetings, with his tardiness attributed to his fondness for playing video games until the early hours of the morning, while his diet was a disgrace for a professional athlete, which contributed to his incessant injury issues. One source told GOAL of countless fast-food cartons found at his house, while a healthy fish dish prepared by his former chef had been discarded.
"It's a messy life," Michael Naya revealed in an interview with . "I've never seen alcohol, but he doesn't respect the rest periods at all. There's no structure around him."
So, while Messi felt that the Frenchman had it in him to become "one of the best" players on the planet, the former Barcelona captain rather tellingly added that "it all depends" on Dembele.
AdvertisementGetty Images Sport'Didn't work as hard as I do now'
There were times during his six-year stay at Camp Nou when it appeared as if Dembele had turned a corner; that he might actually repay Barca's initial investment and continued faith in him. During a good run of form under Xavi in September 2022, he insisted that he had seen the error of his ways.
"The injuries came because, when I was [younger], I didn't work as hard as I do now," he told and . "If you want to be a great player, you have to work. Your talent is not enough. I didn't know that before, but now I see that it's essential to work hard on and off the pitch.
"It's clear that if you don't work you can't enjoy football, you're not going to play much and you're going to get injured. Now, I'm stronger."
Getty Images Sport'Disappointed'
Unfortunately, that particularly purple patch proved nothing more than a false dawn – one of many. And yet Barca continued to believe in Dembele.
Club president Joan Laporta repeatedly argued that "with these types of geniuses, you have to look after them". "Dembele," the Catalan explained in an interview with Gerard Romero on , "deserves some special treatment" – and so he was given umpteen chances to get his act together, effectively becoming a regular in the last-chance saloon.
And then he left, in highly acrimonious circumstances, by taking advantage of a clause in his contract that enabled him to leave for just €50 million (£43m/$57m) – half of which he would pocket himself, with the other half going to an blindsided Barcelona.
Of course, the Blaugrana only had themselves to blame for previously agreeing to such conditions but it was hard not to feel a lot of sympathy for Xavi, who had always stood by Dembele. "I am a little disappointed with Dembele," the coach confessed in the summer of 2023. "He has decided to go to PSG. And there is nothing we can do."
AFP'Worst game I've ever seen anyone have'
Barca, though, really were better off without a €148m (£128m/$169m) signing who had never managed to score more than eight league goals in a single season for the club.
"I like good players, but I prefer committed players," Laporta advisor Enric Masip told . "Dembele had already demonstrated his lack of commitment when he did not renew. It's very easy to kiss the crest when you score a goal or sell smoke on social media. It's legitimate to want to earn more, but when you are committed, you don't look at the money and you don't say one thing one day, and another the next.
"So, I'd rather play a kid from La Masia or with Raphinha, who gives his all in every training session, than someone who gives you a performance of 9/10 and a 3/10 the next day."
Masip's comments may have been motivated by bitterness, but his point about Dembele's maddening lack of consistency was perfectly valid – and gets to the heart of the Frenchman's exclusion from GOAL's World-Class Club because only now, at 28 years of age, is he delivering on a regular basis at the very highest level.
Remember, we're talking about the biggest waste of money in Barcelona's history (which is really saying something), an attacker who has never scored a single goal at a major international tournament (despite representing France in four). Of course, Dembele is a World Cup winner, but that medal merely serves to underline the duality of Dembele, who only played two minutes during the knockout stages of Russia 2018 and produced a performance of such ineptitude in the final in Qatar four years later that he was hauled off before the break.
"[Didier] Deschamps had to do something," former England international Stuart Pearce told at the time. "We were watching a car crash. Dembele was having the worst game I've ever seen anyone have."
