“If you have second thoughts on playing for FC Barcelona, you are no longer of service to us.”, is what the Johan Cruyff quote says. After 6 years of ups and downs, injuries, frustration, elation, Ousmane Dembélé has decided to ditch FC Barcelona for PSG. Well, it’s not official at the moment, but at this point, after what Dembélé has done, he has no way back into Barca fans’ good books. It. is. over.
I have been known to let loose on people on this blog, and as a Barca fan, I am cheesed at Ousmane Dembele. This is in my eyes, the ultimate betrayal. However, going back through Ousmane’s time at Barca, it’s always been the Ousmane Dembele show. He rarely if ever showed his affection toward the club, and to him Barca was just another good club, a stage essentially rather than a love. Barcelona doesn’t operate like that. Not my Barcelona. What makes Barcelona unique is the unit that is the club. Unified by their love of the club and desire for success, and I feel that Dembele has neither.
Even during the Messi and Suarez era, you could still see Dembele’s selfish style of play, but admittedly to a lesser degree. As players like Messi and Suarez left and Dembele ranked higher in the pecking order, Dembele’s entitlement increased. Even though they’re below Dembele in the winger pecking order, players like Ferran Torres, Raphinha, and Ansu Fati have crucial traits that Dembele doesn’t. They’re team-first and they love the club.
Despite all this, I was still a fan of Dembele after Xavi joined. Xavi rejuvenated Dembele’s form, and until his Hamstring injury against Girona in February, he hadn’t missed a game due to injury in about 15 months. He was my favourite of the Barca wingers. Just 2 days ago, in the USA El Clásico, I was celebrating wildly after his opener 15 minutes in. Now, to me, he’s just a step below the likes of Figo and Neymar in terms of betrayals.
Especially as a fan, I feel betrayed to the highest order. It was supposed to be a great season for Barca. Back in April or May, I saw Barca having an MLD attack this season, of Messi, Lewandowski, and Dembele. Now only Lewandowski remains, who’s still great, but he’s a poacher. Dembele has as good as deserted us.
However, it’s not just Dembele who I’m seething at today. PSG has not a love but an obsession; Barcelona. Over the years, PSG has bought Barcelona’s best ever young talent, best ever player, one of their best managers, one of their best women’s players, and one of their best youth academy talents.
PSG has no philosophy, no trophies, no history, and are one of the scummiest clubs I’ve seen in the world of football. PSG were eliminated by Barcelona 3 times in the Champions League, so decided to steal their club. Except they put zero thought into the process, bought every star that any of their staff mentioned and called it a day.
Because of this, they’ve let great youth academy players such as Kingsley Coman, Christopher Nkunku, and Moussa Diaby escape their grasp. That could have been their front 3 now and no one would be unhappy. But of course not. They’re PSG, the biggest drama club with 10 times more money than sense.
Even I, as a fan, can see that a club overhaul every summer won’t work. Every year or two “The project is over” and “it’s time to start fresh”. NO. NO. NO. LET THE STARS GEL FOR GOODNESS SAKE. Their lack of actual football knowledge is insane, and I bet that this would be an Everton situation if PSG were on fair financial ground with all the other teams in Ligue 1.
I can see why the fans are so hostile toward all the stars. PSG is a lifestyle club. I guess that’s why I don’t like them. (And the stealing our players thing). PSG is the opposite of Barcelona, in a way that they don’t sign passionate players, just entitled multi-millionaires who are in it for the football lifestyle rather than love for the game.
That’s all the ranting I can handle for one day. I still simply cannot believe Ousmane Dembele would desert Barcelona like this. I won’t be gracious in my goodbye, and I’m waiting for the first drama between Dembele and PSG, whether it be an injury, disagreement, or any mix of the two. Oh yeah, and if a deal can’t be struck, I don’t want him back. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, though. I’m Jim James, until next time.