ONE FOR
THE FUTURE
France’ s conveyer belt of tremendous talent just seems to keep on churning lately. If Anthony Martial, Paul Pogba, Kingsley Coman, Raphaël Varane and Nabil Fekir weren’ t enough, it seems as though Les Blues have another potentially world class player on their hands.
It’ s been a breakthrough season for Rennes’ young forward Ousmane Dembélé, contributing to 17 goals in 25 games for the Brittany-based club. Dembélé has been with Rennes since 2010, having climbed through the youth ranks into Rennes II for the 2014 season scoring 13 goals in 22 games.
He followed that up by progressing into the first team and announcing himself with a debut goal against Bordeaux in a 2-2 draw at Roazhon Park.
Having recently won Ligue 1’ s most promising player of the year, Dembélé’ s talents are certainly being recognized in his home country, but it’ s not just the French that acknowledge his potential.
The Vernon-born 18-year-old has attracted attention from some of Europe’ s biggest clubs with Bayern Munich, Barcelona and newly crowned Premier League Champions Leicester City all expressing their interest.
Not forgetting that Liverpool and Manchester United have all been rumoured to be keeping tabs on him. Unfortunately for those clubs, it was Borussia Dortmund who acted quickest, swooping to seal the signature of Dembélé until 2021 in mid-May.
Like Anthony Martial, his close control and fast feet allow him to cruise beyond defenders, ranking joint-3rd for the most dribbles of any player in Europe’ s top five leagues, level with Neymar and only trailing Sofiane Boufal and Hatem Ben Arfa. Lionel Messi ranks 6th, while Dembélé’ s fellow Frenchman Kinglsey Coman lies in 7th place.
Ousmane’ s development is being propelled as he feels the weight of responsibility on his shoulders leading a fairly young Rennes side, with Chelsea’ s on loan midfielder Jérémie Boga, as well Paul-Georges Ntep, another talented, young Frenchman, both looking to garner a similar amount of interest as Dembélé.
This pressure will help build Dembélé’ s character, an opportunity he’ d be unlikely to get were he to have been bled through the youth system of a club like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Juventus.
Despite Dembélé’ s incredible season, Euro 2016 is likely to be a bit too soon for him – which is no slight on his ability given the quality of France’ s squad – instead it’ s expected that he’ ll continue playing with France’ s under-21s.
There’ s no doubt the forward is going to play a big part in both Dortmund’ s and France’ s future, all that remains to be seen is just how far he can go in the professional game.
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