Full Name Ousmane Dembélé
Born May 15, 1997
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Nationality French
Role Forward
Ousmane Dembélé is a French professional footballer who plays at the Left Wing position for Spanish club Barcelona. Born on 15th May 1997, the forward is regarded as one of the bright hopes in the future for the Catalans.
Hailing from Vernon, France, the 20-year-old youngster is half Mauritanian. Dembélé is a two-footed player and he won the DFB-Pokal in the 2016–17 season with Borussia Dortmund.
Background
Dembélé started his career at Madeleine Évreux at the age of 7. He then spent 5 years there before moving to Évreux and then at Évreux FC 27 between the ages of 12 and 13. Rennes were interested in him and brought him to their youth setup a year later.
Debut
Dembélé had to wait for 4 years to start his club career. He first featured for Rennes's reserve side as a 78th-minute substitute in the Championnat de France Amateur, on 6th September 2014.
On 9th November 2014, he scored his first goal as a substitute at the Stade de la Piverdière against the reserves of Laval. He had an overall tally of 13 goals in 18 games in his initial season, which included a hat-trick against Hérouville.
On 6th September 2015, Dembélé made his professional debut for Rennes' first team in Ligue 1 against Angers and came off the bench in the last 5 minutes.
For France, He made his debut on 1st September against the Italians at the Stadio San Nicola for the final 27 minutes of a 3–1 friendly victory.
Rise to glory
On 6th March, Dembélé scored his first career hat-trick in a 4–1 victory over Nantes.
On 12th May 2016, Dembélé signed a five-year contract with German club Borussia Dortmund, effective 1 July and on 14th August 2016, he made his debut in 2–0 defeat to Bayern Munich in the DFL-Supercup.
On 20th September 2016, in a Bundesliga encounter against VfL Wolfsburg, he scored his first goal for the club in the 5-1 victory.
On 26th April 2017, he scored the winning goal against Bayern in the DFB-Pokal semi-final, as Dortmund advanced to the final. On 27th May, in the final he scored the first goal of the 2–1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt clinched their first major title in half a decade by winning the 2017 DFB-Pokal Final.
On 13 June 2017, Dembélé scored his first goal for France in the 3–2 friendly victory over England.
Dembélé was named in the Bundesliga’s Team of the Season and was awarded the Bundesliga Rookie of the Season.
On 14th March 2018, Dembélé scored his first goal for Barcelona, netting the second goal in a 3–0 second leg win in the Champions League Round of 16 against Chelsea.
Club career
He initially played for Rennes II in the 2014-15 season where he made 22 appearances and scored 13 goals in it. That was followed by a promotion to the first team where he spent a season featuring in 26 matches and finding the net in 12 matches.
He then moved to Borussia Dortmund for a reported £13.50million. Donning the Number 7 at the Die Borussen, Dembélé played a total of 50 matches scoring 10 goals in his one year stint there.
That was followed by a the joint-second most expensive transfer along with Paul Pogba when Barcelona shelled out £94.50m for the youngster and has since made 13 appearances for the club.
