12 months ago, Ousmane Dembele chose Dortmund over FC Barcelona. He felt that he was not up to the level of the trio Messi-Suarez-Neymar. Because of that reason, Dembele decided to play for Dortmund instead of playing for FC Barcelona. In an interview, he revealed that he turned down the offer of moving to Camp Nou because he was not ready to play for the Spanish Giants. After Neymar Jr. left the club to join PSG, Barcelona were looking for someone to fill up his shoes. As a result of this, they signed Ousmane Dembele, for a whopping €105 million.
Dembele had a chance to join Barcelona in 2016, but he declined the offer. He feels he made the right choice.
Ousmane Dembele, in an interview, said:
“I’d been a professional at Rennes for just six months. Can you imagine? Just six months!”
“Of course [it was too soon]. I wanted to learn, play Champions League games, know what that competition was, to play a whole season with a big team, playing regularly, developing.
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“I would have learned a lot in training, but it would have halted my progression. Luckily Barcelona have come back for a second time, and this time I could not let the train pass.”
Furthermore, he received criticism for skipping training sessions in his final days at Dortmund. However, the 20-year old French does not regret this at all and sees it as negotiating terms between the clubs.
He furthermore added:
“I was relaxed. It was a question of negotiation between Barca and Borussia. I knew I had to have patience.”
He added:
“I decided to stop going training. I didn’t want to go, I looked for an excuse not to go. If it didn’t work out and I hadn’t done my part to get the move to Barca, now I would be lamenting the fact I wasn’t here.”