Much of the attention will be on Kylian Mbappe when Paris Saint-Germain take on Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday, but Ousmane Dembélé will also play a big role in the French club’s clash against his former club. Mbappe is expected to play against Barcelona next season with Real Madrid and has scored 39 goals for Paris Saint-Germain this season. There is only one Dembélé. However, last week Le Parisien suggested the player dubbed the ‘tear-dropper’ offers something different, although Barcelona are well aware of what the 26-year-old winger can do with the ball at his feet.

The France star returned to his homeland last August after six seasons in Catalonia, with PSG reportedly paying €50 million ($54.3 million) to sign him on a five-year contract .

For a world-class player, this relatively paltry amount in the modern transfer market is comparable to the amount of his release clause at cash-strapped Barca.

The move to Paris allowed the Normandy man to team up with Luis Enrique, who he says had previously wanted to sign Dembele when he made his breakthrough at Rennes.

“Paris Saint-Germain have been interested in me for a long time. The first contact was when I was at Borussia Dortmund, but at that time my goal was to play for Barcelona,” Dembélé told sports daily L’Equipe earlier this season .

He admitted that leaving Barcelona was not an easy decision as he flourished under the management of Xavi Hernandez towards the end of his tenure at Camp Nou.

“These were my best two years and the coach showed confidence in me. But I wanted to join PSG. It was more about Paris changing my mind than just quitting Barcelona.”

Destiny therefore dictates that he, like Luis Enrique, will face Barcelona in this season’s Champions League quarter-finals.

The last time the two clubs met was in the round of 16 in 2021, Dembélé was wearing a Barcelona shirt when Mbappe scored a fatal hat-trick in the first leg in Catalonia.

Their previous meeting was the infamous Round of 16 clash in 2017, when Luis Enrique’s Barcelona team came back from 4-0 down in the first leg to win 6-1 in the second leg.

Humiliated, PSG retaliated in August that year, signing Neymar from Barcelona and paying the €222 million needed to activate his release clause.

Played for Barcelona for six years

Barcelona were caught off guard, panicked and spent heavily to find a replacement for the Brazilian superstar.

They acquired 20-year-old Dembélé, who was coming off a stellar season with Borussia Dortmund in Germany. They agreed to pay €105 million plus add-ons for a player who was far from a finished product.

This fee, along with the higher sum promised to sign Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool a few months later, heralded the beginning of serious financial problems at Barcelona that would ultimately lead to Lionel Messi leaving the club in 2021 Paris Saint-Germain.

Dembélé has scored 40 goals in 185 appearances for Barcelona, ​​a much higher rate than he did at PSG, where his only goal has been in 34 appearances so far. The ball came against Monaco in November.

“Had he been a better finisher, he might have won the Ballon d’Or,” current Rennes coach Julien Stephan, who worked with teenage Dembélé at the Breton club, said last week .

Dembélé may really need to score more goals next season once Kylian Mbappe leaves, but currently he has at least provided more assists than any other player in France this season, usually playing on the right wing.

However, the speedy, agile ball-carrier has been deployed in a central role in recent key games, such as the Champions League last-16 second leg away to Real Sociedad and against domestic rivals Marseille.

“I think we will see a better version of Ousmane playing in the middle,” Luis Enrique said recently.

“I’m not worried that he doesn’t score enough goals. I believe he will improve because we see him in training. Everything he creates is very positive for the team and he is an almost unstoppable player.”

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