• An enigma. No one understands Ousmane
  • Diet: A cook for Dembélé

Since signing for Barça, in the summer of 2017, Ousmane Dembélé seems to have transformed himself into a crystal player . Before dressing the Barca shirt, he only had one injury. And not excessively serious. Problems in the hip flexor forced him to be a week and a half off in January of that year, when he was still playing in the ranks of Borussia Dortmund. As a Barcelona player, on the other hand, his physical problems have multiplied. With the one suffered against Athletic, in the first League match, he has already accumulated seven injuries in two seasons.

This last ailment is most inopportune. Luis Suarez was also injured in San Mamés, Leo Messi is not yet registered and the club has just given Coutinho to Bayern Munich, which, right now, Antoine Griezmann is the only striker of the first team, although everything invites To think that the Argentine will be ready to measure himself against Betis next Sunday. In total, if the forecasts are met, Dembélé will be about five weeks off due to a fibrillar break in the biceps femoris of the left leg. Throughout the Bilbao game, the player insistently touched that area, but that did not prevent him from leaving by plane on a lightning trip, to take advantage of the holidays Valverde gave to the Barcelona squad, without informing that he had inconvenience. Only on the way back did the club know about his injury.

In total, if the forecasts are met, the French will now miss four League games and the premiere of the Catalan team in the Champions League and will add 35 more days off to those he already accumulates on his back. The worst, so far, suffered in what was going to be his second game with Barça in the League, the first as a starter. Valverde opted to line it up before Getafe at the Alfonso Pérez Coliseum, but the Frenchman barely played half an hour. The cause: a ruptured tendon of the biceps femoris of the left thigh that forced him to go through the operating room and that took him away from the playing field for three and a half months.

In January 2018, 11 days after returning to the pitch, in a Copa duel against Celta, a new injury left Dembélé again in the dry dock. A fibrillar rupture in the semitendinosus of the left thigh had, in this case, almost one month off. A medical condition that added a sprained ankle, in the last League match, against the Royal Society, which would not, however, prevent him from being part of the French team that was proclaimed world champion in Russia. From then on, the injuries seemed to respect him. But, at the beginning of 2019, history began to repeat itself. In this case, as a result of an ankle injury suffered during a match against Leganés in the Camp Nou that had him 18 days off. Two new muscle injuries, in the final stretch of last season, would eventually force him to accumulate 77 more days off.

In addition, his injury is also inappropriate from another point of view: the negotiation to make Neymar's return to Camp Nou a reality . With Coutinho off the board, his name clearly seemed a great asset to achieve the signing of the Brazilian. The current PSG coach, Thomas Tuchel, knows him very well. Both agreed in the ranks of Borussia Dortmund. However, the French club has always resisted admitting players as currency and Barça also seems to have changed strategy in the last hours. Normally, no club will accept the services of a player who is on leave due to injury. And Dembélé's history, of course, does not invite optimism.

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  • Ousmane Dembélé
  • FC Barcelona
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