Ousmane Dembélé: football’s hottest property, if you can convince his mother
The 18-year-old has attracted the attention of the world’s biggest clubs, smashed Ligue 1 records and Mikaël Silvestre thinks he can win the Ballon d’Or. His feet, however, remain firmly on the ground
Ed Aarons
No player younger than Ousmane Dembélé has ever scored 10 goals in a Ligue 1 season.
He may be the most coveted 18-year-old in world football, but if Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Manchester City are serious about prising Ousmane Dembélé away from
Rennes this summer, then there is one person they must convince: his mother Fatimata.
“She is who will decide Ousmane’s future,” admits Dembélé’s agent Badou Sambagué. “When he wanted to leave last summer, his mother told him she wanted him to stay at Rennes and sign his first professional contract. In the end he had no choice.”
Last Friday, Dembélé scored his 10th league goal of a remarkable debut season as Rennes thrashed Marseille 5-2 at the Stade Vélodrome to keep their unlikely push for Champions League qualification alive. That made him the youngest in player in the history of Ligue 1 to reach that mark – quicker than both Thierry Henry and Anthony Martial – although it was the assist for his side’s
final goal that really marked the teenager out as something special.
Chasing a speculative long ball with the game still in the balance, he glided past Marseille’s Nicolas N’Koulou before the experienced Cameroon defender was left on his backside as Dembélé cut inside. A perfectly weighted pass then landed at the feet of strike partner Giovanni Sio to put the seal on a remarkable victory for Rolland Courbis’s side. The watching scouts, from a list of clubs long enough to form their own breakaway European Super League, could not have failed to be impressed.
Woolwich, Chelsea, City and Tottenham are among his suitors in the Premier League but reports in France on Monday claimed that Bayern have already secured a deal under which Dembélé would be loaned back to Rennes next season. Sambagué, a former Mali international who was a semi-professional player in France’s lower leagues and grew up in the same block of flats as Dembélé in the Normandy town of Évreux, insists that no agreement has been reached. However, with rumours that the bidding will start at around £25m, he knows keeping his young prodigy’s feet on the ground will not be an easy task.
“It’s very important for him to only think about playing football. My job is to protect him from all the speculation,” he says. “I’ve known Ousmane since he was born – I lived on the first floor of our
immeuble and his family was on the second. I went to school with his brother and sister so we know each other very well.
“I was the model for a lot of the young footballers in the area because I had played international football for Mali. My example was to play football and then study so I became a lawyer after retiring. That’s when Ousmane said, ‘Badou I want you to give me a target for the future’.”
Sambagué adds: “There are plenty of good and bad examples for him to follow. I always explain to him that he has an opportunity to become a good example and make a good choice. It’s very important for a young player to have a good mentality to strive to maintain their best performances game after game.”
Despite being restricted to only a handful of appearances for Rennes’ second string last season, the offers still came flooding in. The Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg were ready to pay more than €2m to secure Dembélé’s services, while in his previous role as Manchester City’s football development executive, Patrick Vieira was a regular spectator at the club’s La Piverdière training ground.
But having promised Fatimata, whose family moved to France from Mauritania, that her son would sign a professional contract with the club he first joined as a 13-year-old, the decision to stay was already made.
“Ousmane had the choice between three or four clubs,” remembers Sambagué. “He said, ‘Badou, I’m not a professional player yet because I’m only training with the first team. I want to improve and how can I do that if I don’t play?’
“But he had a good opportunity to gain some experience at a smaller club that know him well. If he had gone somewhere then we may have had to wait for him to play games. At Rennes, he has established himself in the team and now everyone can see what he can do. He has a dream to become a good player, step by step. It’s not to go to a big club and just be forgotten about.”
The patient approach has certainly paid dividends for Rennes – traditionally known as one of the most prolific producers of players in Ligue 1 – as Dembélé’s transfer value has sky-rocketed since making his first-team debut in November. A brilliant hat-trick in
the Breton derby against Nantes on 6 March was reportedly watched by Barcelona’s sporting director Robert Fernández, leading to predictions in the Catalonian press that he would be the next Neymar. A few days later, in his official capacity as
chargé de missions (presidential adviser) at Rennes, the former Manchester United defender Mikaël Silvestre did nothing to dampen expectations when comparing him to “a young Cristiano Ronaldo” and predicted Dembélé would one day appear on the Ballon d’Or shortlist.
“I’m not surprised by his progress – he has been ready for this stage for a long time,” says Sambagué.
“I’ve been speaking to a lot of scouts and for the past three or four years they have known we have a very good player on our hands. But the most important thing is the mentality of the player – you can have all the quality in the world but if you don’t want to improve, you will not get very far. The objective for Ousmane is to keep improving all the time.”
Dembélé was called up to France’s Under-21 side last week and is expected to make his debut against Scotland on Thursday. He was the centre of attention at Monday’s pre-match press conference, denying the Bayern rumours and insisting that he will not allow them “to go to his head”.
Yet having felt short-changed from the sale of their last big discovery
Yann M’Vila – now on loan at Sunderland from Russians Rubin Kazan – for just €12m in 2013, Rennes appear ready to cash in this time. As long as Fatimata approves, that is.
Ousmane Dembélé: football’s hottest property, if you can convince his mother
SausageVince Have you actually seen Onomah play besides for the first team? Everyone in the youth program praises him and says he is fantastic, yet you say he's not good enough based on a few sub appearances and one or two starts in Europa? He's hardly played and this is his first time playing against top level competition. The academy has brought through a lot of players recently and the same people who brought Kane, Mason, Carroll, Walker, Rose, Caulker, Bentaleb, ect. through trust Onomah and say he is fantastic, why do you judge him so harshly when you've hardly seen him?
