Ousmane Dembele crowned Ballon d'Or after transforming at PSG

Ousmane Dembele was crowned the Ballon d'Or winner on Monday night, finishing a season in which Paris Saint-Germain captured the treble and earned their first Champions League title. The 28-year-old finished 2024-25 with 35 goals and 16 assists in 53 appearances, a scoring and playmaking tally that propelled PSG to the top of European football.

Dembele's rise comes after years of public questions about his professionalism. He was dropped by PSG manager Luis Enrique ahead of a trip to Arsenal in the Champions League after a dispute, with Enrique saying the team would not tolerate excuses. When Enrique reportedly left him behind in Paris for the Arsenal game, associates say, Dembele used the moment to reset his approach and accepted a central role as a false nine. He shifted from winger to No. 9, and PSG built their attack around him, with the team showing intensified pressing and improved defensive work.

That reshaping, analysts say, was the catalyst. Julien Laurens, a French football expert, described Dembele as "a gem that needed to be polished in the right way" and credited Enrique and PSG for guiding him. Laurens noted that the positional change, along with the departure of Mbappe in 2024, allowed Dembele to anchor the attack and lead the squad in key moments, including a standout performance in the semi-final at the Emirates. He added that the decision to move him centrally was a turning point: "The other key moment is his repositioning from a winger to a No 9. A lot of people who worked with him when he was young, including one of the first coaches he had at Rennes in Rolland Courbis, thought his best position was as a nine or ten but because he was so quick and technically gifted, it was easy to put him wide. For Enrique to move him centrally and build the team around him was a big turning point - not just for Dembele but for the whole of PSG. When you look at the other Arsenal game, he was a completely different player and they were a different team.""

Dembele's journey from Rennes to Dortmund, Barcelona and then PSG has been marked by enormous potential and equally persistent questions about discipline. Born in Vernon, Normandy, to a Mauritanian-Senegalese mother and a Malian father, he rose quickly through Rennes before moving to Borussia Dortmund at 19. His move to Barcelona in 2017, for a reported £135.5 million, made him one of the sport's most expensive talents. In 2021, then-Barcelona coach Xavi spoke of his potential, saying that when used properly, Dembele could be the best player in the world. But a spate of injuries and off-field concerns kept him from fulfilling that promise for years.

By 2023 Barcelona—facing financial realities and squad evolution—sold him to PSG for about £43.5 million. PSG valued his pace and French identity as a fit for their project, and Mbappe's presence helped him adapt. The departure of Mbappe to Real Madrid in 2024 cleared the path for Dembele to emerge as the focal point of PSG’s attack and a leader on the pitch. Julien Laurens, a French football expert, argues that the environment at PSG under Enrique was crucial: Dembele was given space to develop, and the role he assumed fed a broader team strategy rather than individual brilliance alone.

Beyond the tactical shifts, Dembele began to address the discipline that had haunted his career. A source close to him recalled that for a long time he could "play PlayStation until 2am and still perform the next day"—a lifestyle incompatible with the demands of the modern game. His marriage in 2021 and becoming a father helped him take a more holistic approach to life as a professional athlete. He began working with a nutritionist, a chef and personal physiotherapists to reinforce marginal gains and to support longer-term consistency in performance. That shift fed his late-career peak, culminating in the Ballon d'Or crown.

The season also reflected PSG’s broader strength. Nine players from PSG's 2024-25 campaign were among the 30 Ballon d'Or nominees, underscoring a year in which the collective effort complemented Dembele's growth. As Laurens observes, the Ballon d'Or in this case serves as a reward for a team philosophy: the collective is first, and Dembele’s individual excellence was inseparable from PSG’s title-winning machinery. Like Rodri at Manchester City a year earlier, Dembele’s impact has been to magnify PSG’s ensemble nature as much as his own achievements.

Dembele’s rise is also a reminder of how potential can be realized when the right environment aligns with the right moment. The winger-turned-attack-led No. 9 approach redefined his career arc and offered a blueprint for players whose talent has long been evident but whose professional conduct and consistency have been scrutinized. The Ballon d'Or title places him among France’s elite winners, reinforcing the country’s storied history at the award.

France has produced more Ballon d'Or winners than any other nation, a lineage that includes Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Zinedine Zidane and Karim Benzema. Dembele’s ascent to the top of world football makes him the sixth Frenchman to lift the trophy, and it comes at a time when PSG’s success has elevated discussions about how clubs cultivate talent and structure their squads to maximize both individual brilliance and team success. As the headlines highlighted, this year’s Ballon d'Or is as much about the team as the player who leads it, and Dembele has come to embody that balance.

Dembele’s legacy in this momentextends beyond a single accolade. It represents a renaissance built on accountability, adaptation and the willingness to grow in public view. For fans who watched him struggle with expectations in Barcelona and early seasons at PSG, the crowning achievement on a Parisian stage offers a narrative of maturation and sustained excellence that could shape the next chapter of his career.