Paris Saint-Germain advanced past FC Barcelona last Tuesday in their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal tie. One of the standouts for the Ligue 1 giants over the two legs was Ousmane Dembélé, but his performance against his former club didn’t surprise an expert.
Despite the 3-2 first-leg loss to Barcelona, Dembélé scored one of the two goals and was more than ready for the hostile environment when the scene shifted to Spain. After celebrating the goal against Barcelona, the supporters booed and whistled him during the second leg.
However, that didn’t affect his performance as the 26-year-old scored again against Barcelona and generated a penalty kick opportunity, which led to Kylian Mbappé‘s goal.
Dembélé ⚽#UCL pic.twitter.com/4sVzAcrvnz
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) April 20, 2024
CBS Sports reporter Jonathan Johnson spoke with PSG Talk and noted that Dembélé’s performance against Barcelona didn’t come as a surprise to him, understanding that the storyline fueled the player.
“I think that Dembélé being so consistent over the two legs, to me, was not surprising, but as we’ve learned to expect from Ousman Dembélé over the course of the season, you never know when he’s going to string a couple of really strong performances together. Thankfully, he did manage it against Barça,” Johnson said.
“I think it’s not really that much of a surprise that he did manage to do so against Barça because I think there was always going to be that level of motivation for him going up against his former team, having a point to prove his side of the story to tell about why he moved on from the club and all of that.”
Additionally, the 2018 FIFA World Cup winner received an honor for his second-leg game against Barcelona: he was named Champions League Player of the Week on Friday.
