The Frenchman, who has been named the best male footballer in the world by the Guardian, has benefitted from PSG’s focus on the team rather than individuals
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hat makes a good player great, and a great player the best? This question has been occupying me since 2014, when the Guardian first asked me to contribute to its inaugural Next Generation feature. My job was to look for a France-based talent born in 1997 who could go on to have a stellar career.
After a great deal of research, I narrowed it down from my shortlist of five by asking questions not about the players’ football ability, but about other attributes: resilience, adaptability, decision-making, creativity, work ethic, response to feedback and willingness to learn. Qualities we cannot see, and are harder to measure.
Based on those answers, one player stood out above all the others: a kid called Ousmane Dembélé, then a youth player yet to make a first-team appearance at Rennes. Eleven years after appearing in these pages as one to watch, Dembélé has been voted the best male player in the world by the Guardian’s 219-strong voting panel.
