THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Youth coaches shine a light on Dembele’s teenage years after PSG billionaires get a glimpse of his frightening potential
IT was a bittersweet homecoming for Moussa Dembele but even in heavy defeat, the applause of the Parc des Princes crowd suggested the Celtic striker had only enhanced his reputation. By firing off Celtic’s shock opening goal within a minute, Dembele became the first man to score a Champions League goal against Paris Saint-Germain this season. For the home fans it was an emphatic reminder that he was once lost to the big-spending club’s youth academy.
Substituted after a hard-running and occasionally menacing display, it will have meant much to the 21-year-old that — as he left the field late on — he was warmly acclaimed by a healthy number of natives.
Yet this most single-minded of strikers has never put self-gratification before the choices he believes offer the best path to career advancement.
Dembele was named France’s Young Player of the Year last December ahead of Kingsley Coman and Anthony Martial and there is much excitement at the work he has been doing with the French Under-21 team.
His quick-fire hat-trick against Slovenia earlier this month brought talk that he might even force his way into contention for Les
Bleus’ World Cup squad next summer. When Dembele left PSG for Fulham in 2012 he was taking a risk that he would disappear off the French radar. Similarly, when he turned down English Premier League interest to sign for Celtic and Brendan Rodgers in the summer of 2016, there were those who questioned whether he had taken leave of his senses.
The reality is that both decisions were very carefully thought out. Dembele trusted in his ability to make a splash in English football and, even as a teenager, had the bravery to go toe-totoe with some of the sport’s most agricultural defenders in the Sky Bet Championship, safe in the knowledge his goalscoring prowess would take care of the rest.
Later, when he moved to Scotland under freedom of contract, he eschewed a bigger pay packet in favour of game time and the potential of Champions League exposure. To say Dembele’s story started in the PSG youth ranks is not strictly true as before he’d reached teenage years he was banging in goals for US Cergy Clos, a renowned youth team based in the northern suburbs of Paris.
Yves Gergaud was the man who brought him on board and it is he who takes up Dembele’s story.
‘Until he was 15 years old Moussa hadn’t really thought about leaving Paris,’ says Gergaud. ‘But at that time PSG wasn’t the club it is today and recruiting talented French youngsters was quite popular.
‘But also I think one of the reasons why he left was the fact he couldn’t play his own style of football.
‘He started with Fulham’s Under-19s but apparently it was quite tough the first year because of the language and the fact he was far from the family and didn’t know anyone in London. But he kept going.
‘Even back when I first spotted him he was always a natural finisher. I went to see him in a tournament where he played against the PSG youth academy and, although he wasn’t that much of a dribbler, he loved eliminating a player with his pace or with a dummy and going behind the back line.
‘His execution is just incredible. With us he was scoring around 50-60 goals in the season.’
Asked to describe the personality of the 12-year-old Dembele, Gergaud paints a portrait of an enigmatic child.
‘Discreet and introverted,’ he says. ‘Moussa’s a funny person but when he celebrates it’s understated.’
Gergaud’s words perfectly encapsulate the contradiction that is Dembele. Softly spoken and diffident in conversation, Demebele takes on a different persona when he crosses the line. The shoulders broaden and his steely brown eyes sharpen with laser-guided focus.
Ever since his pre-teen years scoring goals for Gergaud’s team, Dembele has been on a mission to make it big.
Upon signing for Celtic he declared his ambition to become the best striker in the world but, even in the face of almost constant speculation since his explosive hat-trick destroyed Rangers in September of last year, he has calmly maintained that Parkhead remains the best place for his development.
No one at Celtic denies that the club will eventually seek to cash in on Dembele’s market value. Secured for a knockdown development fee of around £500,000 under cross-border transfer
Moussa is discreet and introverted. He’s a really funny person but when he celebrates a goal it is understated
rules, he is estimated to be worth anywhere between £20-30million. If his status as a Celtic player has always felt like a short-term project, there have also been moments when he has underwhelmed. Like a big cat ambling around in the shade while scouring the horizon for prey, Dembele’s economy of movement can be unfairly misinterpreted as lazy but when such body language marries with the sort of physically unassertive display he produced at Ross County last weekend, then even Brendan Rodgers becomes moved to chide his boy wonder. ‘When you’re up there as the striker, you are a platform for the team,’ said Rodgers when asked to comment on his audible in-game rebuke for the striker. ‘You’ve got to get a hold of the ball and we (he) didn’t do that well enough.’ It’s rare for Rodgers to round on an individual and when it comes to Dembele the manager has made a point of emphasising the striker’s professionalism and commitment to perfecting his trade. Rodgers’ greatest challenge in managing Dembele has been trying to keep both he and Leigh Griffiths happy. The pair both had injury problems last season and, fortunately for Rodgers, each arrived at form and fitness in time to cover for the other. Reluctant to field them as a pair, he has been carefully rotating them in recent weeks and must today decide which one should start the Betfred League Cup final. Neither will be happy with the role of substitute. After outgrowing Cergy Clos and signing for PSG, Dembele came under the charge of Under-17 coach Laurent Bonadei, who recalls a committed team player who detested being dropped.
‘Moussa had everything,’ says Bonadei. ‘He was very good with his head but he could use both feet. With us he improved as a team player, making the effort for his team-mates. He’s very altruistic as he’s not only able to score but he put the team first and set up goals for other players.
‘He’s a good listener, very sympathetic but he was a true competitor so when he scored he was happy but when he was on the bench he definitely wasn’t.’
If Griffiths can seem more consistently reliable to score in a domestic setting, Dembele brings an irresistible package of power and supreme confidence to the European stage.
He might not care to reflect on what happened in defence as PSG battered their guests with a hailstorm of goals to administer a 7-1 thrashing on Wednesday but he did not look out of place running up against the French champions’ powerful defensive pairing of Marquinhos and Thiago Silva.
Linking especially well with his fellow France Under-21 team-mate Olivier Ntcham, he was entitled to feel content with his performance.
Whether that will have been enough to convince French national coach Didier Deschamps that he should be handed a plane ticket to Russia next summer is another matter.
Deschamps selected Dembele in his provisional squad for the games against Wales and Germany. When he failed to make the cut, the forward went out and blew Slovenia away with that treble strike.
Gergaud has watched his development with pride and hopes to see him feature on the biggest stage of all next year. ‘Playing against PSG was a big moment for Moussa as all of his buddies were there,’ adds Gergaud. ‘I wish the best for him and hopefully he will be able to go to the World Cup. It’s going be tough but you never know.’