“Who could I give glasses to? Oh well, for Ousmane Dembélé, that would help him score,” joked Kylian Mbappé a few weeks ago. Finally, no need for glasses, just a little patience. After 70 minutes in his 16th match in Parisian colors, the 26-year-old French international winger (39 caps, 6 goals) finally unlocked his counter on Friday in Paris, during the defeat against Monaco (5-2). . Finally !
However, there has been no shortage of opportunities so far. “Dembouz” even thought he had found the fault during the first leg against Milan (3-0), celebrating like crazy… before seeing the referee cancel the goal due to a foul by Manuel Ugarte at the start of the action . The best thing is that the former Barcelona player had seen it all. “Well why did you go to celebrate then?” Mbappé asked him, all smiles, after the match. “You give me attention, that’s why,” retorted Dembélé, also smiling from ear to ear. This time, no doubt, no suspense: this long-awaited goal was uncontested. And what a goal… “100% pure Dembélé”, as Luis Enrique noted. Pigeon wing from the left, perfect run to stay in front of the Monaco defender and cannon shot from the right to find the opposite net and deceive the Swiss goalkeeper of Monaco, Philipp Köhn. Great art. The 3-1 goal for Paris, in the 70th minute, that of the break.
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“I didn’t ask myself any questions, I decided to shoot hard, even if it doesn’t often work for me when I shoot hard, but it went in and I’m happy,” commented the Parisian winger, on Amazon Prime Video. Content, but not overflowing with joy. Or, a contained joy. “It’s nice, I’m happy, but the most important thing is that the team continues with this dynamic of victories in Ligue 1. We are still waiting for a lot of support on Tuesday against Newcastle,” he added. PSG-Newcastle, a very important match in the Champions League. An imperative victory for Dembélé and company, second in their group (the classification of group F here) before the last two days. “We will have to win the next two matches in the Champions League,” he says again. The last one will be in Dortmund (13/12).
In the meantime, the native of Évreux defeated the Indian sign with this “superb goal”, says Luis Enrique, after “all the noise there was around him” and this goal which was slow to come. Moreover, you only had to see the joy of all the Parisian players at the time to understand that this first achievement was dear to Dembélé, whose name was chanted by the Parc des Princes during his replacement, in the 72nd, just after scoring.
If Luis Enrique released Ousmane Dembélé, it was in no way a sanction. It was simply to spare him for the shock against the Magpies on Tuesday evening. Because Dembélé has shone until then, bleeding in his dribbles, inspired in his transmissions and more comfortable than ever in his technical relationship with Achraf Hakimi on the right. He was involved in the first two Parisian goals. It was he who sent the shot released by Köhn which allowed Gonçalo Ramos to open the scoring. And it is again he who causes the penalty converted by Mbappé. Just after his release, Vitinha added his name to the list of scorers, before seeing the incoming Randal Kolo Muani increase the score in stoppage time. “Since the first day, I have enjoyed the fact that he is there , Luis Enrique ignites. He is one of the best players in the world at destabilizing opposing defenses. He has personality, he always tries to dribble, make assists, perform actions that make the supporters stand up… I love having this type of profile in my team.”
More accuracy, less waste: Dembélé, who benefits from a certain freedom in terms of marking due to the attention paid by opponents to Mbappé, has clearly been gaining momentum in recent weeks. Obviously, we are not going to change him: he will never score as much as his comrade Mbappé. He will probably not go through new series of 15 matches without scoring either… “If in addition to everything he does very well, that is to say this ability to destabilize, to eliminate, he adds an efficiency more important…”, breathed Didier Deschamps recently. It actually can’t do any harm. The Toons are warned in view of the C1…
“We had a very good match overall,” analyzed Ousmane Dembélé, who has four assists on the clock since the start of the season. It was a very good match for the spectators and viewers. Monaco tries to play and goes after its opponent by pressing. We had a good match. (…) Monaco pushed us to make some small errors because they press well, they try to play. Afterwards, it’s part of football but we got up very quickly in the match, we continued to attack, to try to defend well too and we are rewarded with this victory”, rejoiced Dembélé, MVP of this opening match of the 13th day of Ligue 1, a shock which kept all its promises and which allowed Paris to consolidate its leading position in the standings. Place in Newcastle. Another pair of sleeves.
