Ousmane Dembélé may come full circle this Sunday and play his last away game in a Barça shirt. Or maybe not, that French is just as unpredictable as in the countryside. But it was in Getafe, this afternoon Barça plays at the Coliseum, where the Frenchman began his injury ordeal in 2017, happily forgotten in recent months. Dembélé had literally been at Barça for three times when it happened to him. He had made his debut against Espanyol, had played as a starter against Juventus and, already in Getafe, Valverde decided that he should play his first game as a starter in LaLiga. At the Coliseum, he did crack. Before half an hour, Dembélé tried to hit a heel and broke the femoral biceps of his left leg. Valverde did not understand anything. Except with the later images, in which he was seen to the extreme with discomfort while he warmed up. Dembélé did not say anything and broke.
Since then, he has missed more than 100 games during his time at Barça, which, curiously, has only found continuity now that it is over. After several relapses in the left leg, Dembélé also broke his right femoral biceps in February 2020., identical injury to the one he had in the other leg. “We are going to make a great signing with Dembélé”, Quique Setién had said days before that. Already last season, he broke the biceps tendon in his right knee at the European Championship. Another four months off.
Dembele has changed. During his first season, the club went head-to-head with him. Bad eating habits, bad rest, lateness, absences in training. All this was corrected little by little, but the injuries continued to appear. After his operations in Finland at the hands of doctors Sakari Orava and Lasse Lempeinen, he got better at risk prevention. The results were slow to be seen due to that injury in the European Championship, but now Dembélé has more than 30 games without getting injured and 20 of them he has played consecutively after the club lifted the veto for not renewing, which prevented him from traveling to Bilbao and Vitoria for two Cup and League matches respectively.
Dembélé definitely seems like a healthy player who, moreover, is beginning to perform. Despite his problems with the finish, he does attend well. He has 13 decisive passes in LaLiga, nobody has done more in the entire championship and, finally, he seems like a healthy player now that his relationship with Barça ends. Dembélé and his agents are still waiting these days for an improved proposal from the club, which is still thinking about it. Many see the player at PSG, but it seems that Dembélé is still waiting for a final gesture from Barça. Meanwhile, this Sunday he finishes banishing his ghosts in Getafe. That injury already seems forgotten.