With just over a month to go before the match between Barcelona and Naples in the last 16 of the Champions League -in principle it will be played between August 8 or 9-, The options that Ousmane Dembélé may be available are definitely diluted. Your recovery does not go on schedule -there is talk of two to three weeks late-, so right now his presence in the face of the return of the European Cup is practically ruled out.
Dembélé, who works completely apart from the first team and in the company of the physiotherapist Xavi Linde, is now starting to carry out a continuous career with sneakers. He barely touches the ball for now, much less boots.
Forecasts suggest that in the best case scenario you can start working with the group in early August, but Taking into account his lack of rhythm – he will have spent more than eight months without playing a football match -, he will need a minimum of fifteen days to pick up the same tone as the rest of his teammates, so his options to return to the Champions only pass in the hypothetical case that Barcelona reaches the final on August 23.
Dembélé is also having to endure the emotional slab of recovering without being able to see her companions, since LaLiga protocol prohibits him from sharing costumes with the first team as he is not registered. This particular situation is aggravating if possible his recovery, which is progressing very slowly.
Remember that Dembélé He underwent surgery on February 11 of this year in Finland for a rupture in the proximal tendon of the femoral biceps of the right leg, with an initial prognosis of about six months' absence. The problem of the French striker is that this last injury came in training and had not yet been discharged from the previous one, when the femoral biceps of his right leg was broken during the dispute of the Champions League match against Borussia from Dortmund . It was November 27, and since that day, the Frenchman has not played a game again.
And it is that the great problem of Dembélé not only lies in receiving the medical discharge but reaching the competitive discharge, that is, that the technicians consider that he is at the same level to compete with his colleagues. Once you receive the medical OK, it would take you at least fifteen days to get into the rhythm of the competition. Hence, his presence for Barça-Naples has been totally ruled out in the absence of just over a month for the match, as well as his options to be in the quarters or semifinals. Only in a hypothetical final, and with many reservations, the striker could be available.