Dembele’s dawn

A new Dembélé has dawned. With a better understanding of how to watch football, with determination and assuming amazing stripes for a player who is theoretically on his way out, he has been a thunderbolt in the last month. In five games he has scored a great goal (against Athletic) but, above all, he has provided seven assists: one at Mestalla, two against Athletic, two against Osasuna and two at the Bernabéu.

In Madrid, Dembélé understood perfectly what the match required. While the combinations were taking place on the left (Busquets-Alba-Pedri-Ferran), he was the knife on the right wing: he attacked Nacho and, this time, he didn’t recreate himself and went for work. In the 0-1, in addition, he showed that he has a very special connection with Aubameyang. They had already played a great game together at the Bernabéu a few years ago. And they repeated. they feel happy with spaces and speak the same language.

Far from seeming isolated from the rest of the group due to the proximity of the end of his contract, the January crisis and his agent’s distancing from the club, Dembélé has shown a great degree of involvement and professionalism in recent weeks. His image chasing Ferran after 0-3 is that of a plugged-in footballer who, if he has to leave, wants to do so with a smile on his lips.

But is there a possibility of going back? It’s the big question weeks ago, but especially since the Frenchman started playing at a very high level and the president, Joan Laporta, hugged him in training last Wednesday at the Ali Sami Yen. There is no doubt about what Xavi thinks. In his presentation, he assured that, “well trained”, he could be “the best player in the world in his position. Then, when the club punished him, Xavi, although he was disappointed by the player’s attitude, asked Laporta to be one If not, the harmony of the group could be broken. Xavi picked him up and the player returned the gesture with sacrifice. And, well trained, as Xavi himself said, he is proving unstoppable. Fortunately for Barça, moreover, Deschamps has not called him up, so he will be able to follow his training pace and maintain his fitness without apparent risk of injury for the next fifteen days.

Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff, the executives who must decide with Laporta what to do with Dembélé, have been very cold, much more than Xavi, in recent times. But Jordi himself admitted that in football “everything is possible”. If Barça ends up withdrawing from the battle for Haaland as a threat, it could be time to make one last call to Moussa Sissoko to try to achieve something that was literally impossible two months ago: Dembélé renews. It no longer seems crazy to the partner.