Dembélé's penultimate chance

Dembélé celebrates his goal against Ferencváros.Laszlo Balogh / AP

"If he starts running, I think he will beat me," says Jordi Alba.

"If he faces you, consider yourself lost," Busquets adds, as did Rakitic.

"If you have the day, you don't get it," adds Piqué.

"If he focuses, he has everything to succeed," they point out from the Barcelona sports area.

But everything has been conditioning factors in the Barça life of Ousmane Dembélé (Vernon, France, 23 years old), who is finally facing his final opportunity at the Camp Nou.

At the moment, the French winger seizes the occasion with force, provided by the serious injury of Ansu Fati and his good work, decisive in the Champions League with three goals and two assists, less effective in La Liga with only one target.

He has to visit Cádiz (Saturday, 9:00 PM; Movistar LaLiga) and demonstrate his fixed candidacy, in addition to winning a renewal if he does not want to be transferred in the next market because his contract ends in 2022. All or nothing, now or never,

.

During the last game against Ferencváros, Dembélé was a whirlwind, a footballer who does not attend to the choral game but challenges by definition, keen on laps and above all looking for the goal.

Its well-used unpredictability, however, is a treasure.

In the meeting in Hungary, for example, his mix with Alba - a pending defect in the footballer because it is difficult for him to absorb tactical concepts when he understands that with the ball at his feet he is more effective - triggered the illusion with the Frenchman again, that player that former president Bartomeu defined as “better than Neymar” and whom his agent points out as the future Ballon d'Or. For now, Dembélé is content to enter the

also with the affection of Griezmann and Braithwaite because they let him shoot the penalty against Ferencváros.

"It's difficult to decide the line-up when people like Dembélé play like this," Koeman acknowledged from Budapest.

It remains to be seen if his fragile muscles hold up.

It turns out that the Frenchman's relationship to injuries is a permanent scar.

He broke in his league premiere, four years ago, and since then he has been a regular at reboot;

He has been away from the pitch for 512 days and has stayed in the stands in 80 games of the 184 that Barça have played since he arrived.

Or, what is the same, 43.5% of the encounters have been lost.

“Now, it's centered.

It feels important ”, they wield from the dressing room, not very suspicious of the French's many rudeness.

"He is happy and I am happy"

An unbalanced diet, unpunctual appointments, too much

and an environment that does not help him - "although he has polished it and is becoming more stable," they point out from the club -, made Barça fail in their attempt to put him as a tutor to Éric Abidal [then Barça's sports director] and then to try to hand him over to Manchester United this summer.

That same day, it was the last time the Frenchman

, as he left the sports city without prior notice.

Koeman made him regret it because he put Fati and even Pedri ahead of him, also Trincão.

"He is physically better, he has trained hard and extra sessions," the Dutchman acknowledged a month later.

Dembélé has improved physically, to perform he must be physically well.

And you will gain more confidence.

He is happy, happy, we continue with him, I am very happy, "he added this Friday, perhaps the first coach who has the winger because with Ernesto Valverde he did not enter the pools for the key games and Quique Setién was left with the desire to use him after suffering his ninth injury since arriving at Barça.

Footballer who declared himself in absentia to sign for the club - who broke the bank with a fixed 105 million plus 42 in variables, the second most expensive signing in the history of Barça after Coutinho -, is still waiting for

turn on the field

in regularity.

From the club they expect it: “He suffered a serious injury, many criticisms and did not have the absolute confidence of the technicians.

And he has had the personality of pushing forward, of always gambling on the pitch ”.

Enough to go on for now.

Thus,

Fines that the club gives him are as fat as his goals, the end point of Homeric plays, typical of a sprinter with silk feet at times and with bricks at others.

Now is your chance.

Surely the penultimate because, as they say from the offices of the Barça sports city, "it has something and is different."