In an interview for RTL, Julien Stephan returned at length to the future signing of Ousmane Dembélé at PSG. The former Rennes coach, who launched the 26-year-old winger into the professional world, wanted to reassure him about the player’s physical condition. Often injured at Barça and singled out at one point for his lifestyle, the former Borussia Dortmund striker seems to have changed a lot since then.
“Ousmane has put a lot of things in place on a personal level with his entourage to seek to find some answers to the few physical glitches he may have had when he was at Barcelona. He has also matured a lot. He became a man with a sense of responsibility. (…) What I know is that he puts everything in place on a daily basis precisely to limit the risk of injury and to counteract the few difficulties he has encountered. His agent does a lot of things to put around him a structure and competent people: a cook, a nutritionist, a physiotherapist, a physical trainer also to give himself the best possible chance. Injuries are not always linked to a lifestyle issue, it is also sometimes inherent in the muscle injury and its specificity, especially for a player who also plays a lot on his athletic qualities.
