00:05The man in possession of the Ballon d'Or heading into the 2026 World Cup is French forward
00:11Ousmane Dembele. But unlike previous recipients of the accolade, there is little guarantee the
00:21Paris Saint-Germain star will be anywhere near the centre of attention in North America.
00:29Dembele was 28 when he was named the best footballer on the planet and he was coming off his tenth
00:34season as a top-level professional. And what a season it was. With PSG he won the French
00:43League and Cup double as well as the first UEFA Champions League in the club's history.
00:49But individually it was a huge outlier, being the first time he'd played more than 50 games
00:56in a season, and the first time he'd scored more than 14 goals.
01:03The combination of individual brilliance and team success nudged him ahead of Lamin Yamal,
01:08Vicinha and Mohamed Salah.
01:13What this best player award represents is, first and foremost, a collective effort. Because
01:19without this team, without this club, without this staff, I wouldn't have been able to have
01:23such a great season. I've been repositioned as a number nine, and that helped me a lot. My
01:29team helped me score goals and be decisive, and I also think there's been a change in my
01:33mentality. The question now is whether Dembélé can maintain such high standards. His injury
01:43record is horrendous. During his career, he has spent a collective two and a half years of
01:49playing time on the sidelines, mostly with hamstring issues. With each of the many separate
01:55stoppages, then requiring time to get back up to speed. He collected his Ballon d'Or trophy
02:03during a six-week hamstring injury, then shortly afterwards damaged his calf muscle.
02:12In my career, I've had a lot of difficult and good moments. It's part of everyday life,
02:17whether you're a footballer or a normal person. There are challenges in life that you have to
02:22overcome, and I've overcome them. Dembélé's rise was meteoric. He began his professional
02:31career at Rennes, where he was named Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year in his sole season
02:36with the first team. He moved immediately to Borussia Dortmund, winning the DFB-Pokal in
02:44his debut campaign, and being named Bundesliga rookie of the season.
02:51Instead of incrementally building his career, Dembélé was then thrust into the spotlight in
02:56a serious way, moving to Barcelona for an initial fee of €105 million, making him at the time
03:05the joint second most expensive player in history. This figure was doubtless inflated by Neymar's
03:11recent transfer to PSG, and the hole that resulted in cash was burning in Barca's pocket.
03:18I don't feel the pressure at all. The transfer market has become a bit crazy. I truly don't
03:25care about it. I am 20 years old, and I know how to do my job on the pitch. That
03:30is all that
03:31concerns me. I don't think about the financial aspect.
03:37Dembélé won three La Liga titles at the Camp Nou, but his time in Spain was repeatedly interrupted
03:43by injury, and he never lived up to such expensive billing. Form and fitness built after he moved
03:50to Paris, helped by the demanding management of Luis Enrique. The Spaniard actually dropped Dembélé at the beginning of his
03:58Ballon d'Or winning season for disciplinary issues.
04:02I repeat, every player has a series of obligations to fulfil for the team. Right now all players are available.
04:09If tomorrow
04:10someone fails to fulfil them, and it's serious, I have no problem making tough decisions.
04:16This tough love sharpened Dembélé's focus, and he exploded in his second season in the French capital.
04:24I think I had one of my best starts to a season of my career, especially statistically. And in 2025,
04:31I completely exploded. The collective titles are the most important, and that leads to individual titles. The thing you have
04:40to do, I think, is focus on the team. If you're rewarded, then that's good.
04:46Didier Deschamps is a big believer in Dembélé's talents. The French manager called him up for Les Bleus way back
04:53in 2016, and he featured in four matches as France surged to the 2018 World Cup title in Russia.
05:00Although he didn't appear in the final. Four years later in Qatar, he played in every match as France finished
05:09runner-up to Argentina.
05:14But despite this loyalty, France have no shortage of forwards that could offer greater durability during a major tournament. In
05:222025 alone, Deschamps has played Michael Alisse, Christopher Nkunku, Hugo Eketike, Bradley Barkele, Ryan Cherky, Jean-Philippe Mateta, Florian Thauvin,
05:34Magnès Agliouche, Randall Kolomouani, Kingsley Korman, Marcus Touram,
05:40and Desiree Due. Not to mention captain and talisman, Kylian Mbappe.
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