Although he arrived at FC Barcelona with a lot of expectations and fanfare, the French winger Ousmane Dembele remains one of the most unsatisfying signings in the recent history of the club.
The Catalans bought him by paying an initial fee of €105 million, but potential add-ons ultimately took this amount to €148 million, making him the most expensive signing in the club’s history.
Most of this fee was sponsored by the €222 million that PSG had paid as Neymar’s release clause, and Dembele was expected to be the Brazilian’s successor in Barcelona.
However, before leaving the Catalan club to join PSG in 2023, most of his time at the Blaugrana club was marred with injuries. Although he showed promising signs whenever he got a consistent run of games, some key ingredients were missing in his game that frequently frustrated his coaches and fans.
One such ingredient was his decision-making. Even Xavi Hernandez, the Barcelona coach who showed the most confidence in his abilities, publicly admitted multiple times that Dembele needed to improve this aspect, in order to choose the best option available for his team in good attacking situations.
Thus, as SPORT has reported, it was quite surprising when one of Dembele’s former teammates at Barcelona, Franck Kessie, picked up the French winger as the best player he has played with in his career with the best footballing IQ.
The Ivorian midfielder appeared in an informal interview in which he was asked about his best teammates in various aspects of the game. He picked Dembele as the player with the best left-foot and footballing IQ.
He also picked Frenkie de Jong, another player with whom he played at Barcelona, as the best passer he has played with in his entire career.
Franck Kessie played for Barcelona for only one year, the 2022-23 season, and played with some highly intelligent players like Pedri and Frenkie de Jong, to name a few, which makes his choice of Ousmane Dembele as the most intelligent player even more surprising.
