Ousmane Dembele is the 2025 Ballon d'Or favourite - but he hasn't done enough yet to earn world-class status

Lionel Messi never had any doubts over Dembele's world-class potential. The winger was, as the Argentine pointed out all the way back in 2018, "a phenomenon on the field". The only problem was how Dembele conducted himself off it.

There were worrying reports of ill-discipline even during his breakout season at Borussia Dortmund, while his behaviour at Barcelona became a near-constant cause for concern in Catalunya. Even accounting for the fact that he was just a teenager when he joined the Blaugrana, Dembele admitted himself that he "wasted" five years of his career at Camp Nou due to a total lack of professionalism.

He was repeatedly late for team meetings, with his tardiness attributed to his fondness for playing video games until the early hours of the morning, while his diet was a disgrace for a professional athlete, which contributed to his incessant injury issues. One source told GOAL of countless fast-food cartons found at his house, while a healthy fish dish prepared by his former chef had been discarded.

"It's a messy life," Michael Naya revealed in an interview with Le Parisien. "I've never seen alcohol, but he doesn't respect the rest periods at all. There's no structure around him."

So, while Messi felt that the Frenchman had it in him to become "one of the best" players on the planet, the former Barcelona captain rather tellingly added that "it all depends" on Dembele.

There were times during his six-year stay at Camp Nou when it appeared as if Dembele had turned a corner; that he might actually repay Barca's initial investment and continued faith in him. During a good run of form under Xavi in September 2022, he insisted that he had seen the error of his ways.

"The injuries came because, when I was [younger], I didn't work as hard as I do now," he told Sport and Mundo Deportivo. "If you want to be a great player, you have to work. Your talent is not enough. I didn't know that before, but now I see that it's essential to work hard on and off the pitch.

"It's clear that if you don't work you can't enjoy football, you're not going to play much and you're going to get injured. Now, I'm stronger."

Unfortunately, that particularly purple patch proved nothing more than a false dawn - one of many. And yet Barca continued to believe in Dembele.

Club president Joan Laporta repeatedly argued that "with these types of geniuses, you have to look after them". "Dembele," the Catalan explained in an interview with Gerard Romero on Twitch, "deserves some special treatment" - and so he was given umpteen chances to get his act together, effectively becoming a regular in the last-chance saloon.

And then he left, in highly acrimonious circumstances, by taking advantage of a clause in his contract that enabled him to leave for just €50 million (£43m/$57m) - half of which he would pocket himself, with the other half going to an blindsided Barcelona.

Of course, the Blaugrana only had themselves to blame for previously agreeing to such conditions but it was hard not to feel a lot of sympathy for Xavi, who had always stood by Dembele. "I am a little disappointed with Dembele," the coach confessed in the summer of 2023. "He has decided to go to PSG. And there is nothing we can do."

Barca, though, really were better off without a €148m (£128m/$169m) signing who had never managed to score more than eight league goals in a single season for the club.

"I like good players, but I prefer committed players," Laporta advisor Enric Masip told SPORT. "Dembele had already demonstrated his lack of commitment when he did not renew. It's very easy to kiss the crest when you score a goal or sell smoke on social media. It's legitimate to want to earn more, but when you are committed, you don't look at the money and you don't say one thing one day, and another the next.

"So, I'd rather play a kid from La Masia or with Raphinha, who gives his all in every training session, than someone who gives you a performance of 9/10 and a 3/10 the next day."

Masip's comments may have been motivated by bitterness, but his point about Dembele's maddening lack of consistency was perfectly valid - and gets to the heart of the Frenchman's exclusion from GOAL's World-Class Club because only now, at 28 years of age, is he delivering on a regular basis at the very highest level.

Remember, we're talking about the biggest waste of money in Barcelona's history (which is really saying something), an attacker who has never scored a single goal at a major international tournament (despite representing France in four). Of course, Dembele is a World Cup winner, but that medal merely serves to underline the duality of Dembele, who only played two minutes during the knockout stages of Russia 2018 and produced a performance of such ineptitude in the final in Qatar four years later that he was hauled off before the break.

"[Didier] Deschamps had to do something," former England international Stuart Pearce told talkSPORT at the time. "We were watching a car crash. Dembele was having the worst game I've ever seen anyone have."

It's not as if Dembele's productivity immediately increased upon his arrival in Paris either. He scored just three times during the 2023-24 Ligue 1 season, while he was directly involved in only three goals during PSG's run to the semi-finals of the Champions League. It's only this year - and we do mean this year, not this season - that he started performing on a weekly basis.

Indeed, it's often forgotten that Dembele, much like PSG, only clicked in the Champions League on January 22, during the crucial come-from-behind win over Manchester City. He hadn't scored before that night and had been dropped for the matchday-two meeting with Arsenal for disciplinary reasons before being suspended for the matchday-six clash with Red Bull Salzburg after stupidly getting himself sent off against Bayern Munich a fortnight beforehand.

Everything changed after the City comeback, though - not least due to Luis Enrique's decision to redeploy Dembele as a centre-forward, which was hailed by Montpellier boss Jean-Louis Gasset as "the idea of the century".

It certainly paid off spectacularly for PSG, with Dembele going on to contribute eight goals to the Parisians' first-ever European Cup win, including crucial strikes at Anfield and the Emirates.

Having also racked up more assists (six) than any of his team-mates during their triumphant Champions League campaign, it's easy to understand why Dembele is said to be leading the race for the 2025 Ballon d'Or - a glorified popularity contest nearly always won by goal-scorers. Former France international Ludovic Giuly even pointed out at the turn of the year that Dembele would become a contender if he could just add goals to his game.

However, just as it would be incorrect to call Dembele PSG's most important player (Vitinha and Achraf Hakim, for example, are far more integral to how Luis Enrique's team operates), it would also be wrong to claim that he's proven himself 'world-class' on the back of six fruitful months.

True greatness is measured over a far longer timeframe - as Dembele knows himself.

There was a lovely moment shortly after PSG's Club World Cup win over Inter Miami when Messi presented a delighted Dembele with not only his shirt, but also his shorts and the boots he'd worn during the game in Atlanta. Dembele even took to social media to express his joy at being reunited with his former Barcelona team-mate - or, as the Frenchman called him, "the greatest of all time".

Messi was clearly happy to see Dembele too, and must have been thrilled to see how the talented teenager that lost his way at Camp Nou has finally found happiness at Parc des Princes.

Dembele even admitted himself that while he played in some "amazing" sides at Barca alongside "the GOAT", Luis Enrique's "is the one I enjoy the most".

The challenge now, though, for Dembele is to carry his fantastic form during the first half of 2025 into a World Cup year and finally make a major impact on the game's grandest stage. He's showcased his world-class credentials to thrilling effect over the past six months, but legitimate doubt remains over whether Dembele can deliver over an extended period of time.

We know he has the talent to do so. But does he have the desire? As has always been the case, everything depends on Dembele.