Breakout Star

After an injury-interrupted start to his career in Spain, Barcelona’s French star is now making his mark.

- Nick Bidwell

A conurbation in Normandy of just 50,000 inhabitants, Evreux has emerged in the past couple of decades as one of the most fertile areas for footballing talent in France. Former France full-back Bernard Mendy, ex-Lille, Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon midfielder Mathieu Bodmer and current Marseille and Les Bleus keeper Steve Mandanda all come from the town. As does potentially the best of the lot: 21-year-old Ousmane Dembele, who cost €105million when he joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund last year.

A member of France’s World Cup-winning squad this summer, Dembele now calls Camp Nou and Stade de France home. But as an adolescent he had to make do with a rectangle of tarmac among the housing blocks of the down-at-heel Madeleine quarter of Evreux.

Known as the “Play” – anglicised no doubt for greater coolness – this was the place where he began his footballing apprenticeship. The narrative is common: the smallest kid with the celestial ability.

“You could say all us kids did our bit in helping ‘Ous’ develop his skills,” declares Dembele’s cousin, Amadou Diatta. “At the ‘Play’ we’d usually start one of those rondo games and he never seemed to end up as the piggy in the middle.

“Then we’d go and practise our crossing and shooting. Right foot and left foot. He was knee-high to a grasshopper but was already nutmegging opponents.

“It was obvious he wasn’t like the others, that he was better than everybody else. That was his destiny.”

From the age of six he was playing organised football, too. Ahmed Wahbi, a coach at local club ALM Evreux - later to become Evreux FC following a merger - spotted the youngster turning on the style on a patch of wasteland and, after a successful sales pitch to Dembele’s mother Fatimata, he got him on board.