Enter the Ballon d'Or winner: Ousmane Dembele in ideal spot to further his case for second Golden Ball if he can fire France to World Cup glory

Dembele's pace had proven a problem for opponents in Qatar. Just like Mbappe, he was blessed with the ability to burn full-backs from a standing start. It was there, though, that similarities between the two team-mates ended.

Mbappe carried a constant goal threat and was unquestionably a big-game player. Dembele was painfully profligate and could never be counted upon to step up to the mark when it mattered most.

Indeed, the abiding memory of his time at Barcelona was the winger almost apologetically helping a stunned Messi back to his feet, after missing a chance to kill off Liverpool in the 2019 Champions League semi-finals that the exhausted Argentine had put on a plate for him.

However, even by Dembele's incredibly low standards at the time, his performance in Lusail was astoundingly atrocious.

Dembele was stationed on the same side of the field as Angel Di Maria, a man nine years his senior. It looked like a mismatch, and so it proved - just not in the way everyone expected.

Di Maria ran riot down Argentine's right wing, winning the penalty with which Messi opened the scoring by playing Dembele "like a little boy", as Gary Neville put it on ITV, before making it 2-0 nine minutes before half-time.

Consequently, Dembele didn't even make it to break, with Didier Deschamps hauling him off after what Stuart Pearce described as "the worst game" he'd ever seen from a professional footballer.

"He’s given the penalty away and has probably given away every pass that he had after that," the former England left-back said of a shocking showing that was mercifully cut short by his coach after just 41 minutes. "Deschamps had to do something. We were watching a car crash."

The final cemented Dembele's status as the biggest waste of natural talent in world football.

He'd looked a potential world-beater during his breakout season at Borussia Dortmund in 2016-17 and was a member of the France team that triumphed at Russia 2018, but he left Barcelona in 2023 widely regarded as the biggest flop in the club's history - which was really saying something, given the Catalans' catalogue of bad buys.

However, he's since achieved legendary status at Paris Saint-Germain, primarily thanks to Luis Enrique.

There's a famous clip in a documentary made by Movistar in which Luis Enrique tries to convince Mbappe of the importance of leading by example.

"I read that you liked Michael Jordan," the Spaniard says in a video analysis meeting with the France forward. "Michael Jordan would grab his team-mates by the balls and defend like a madman."

It's fair to say that Mbappe never really took the message on board. Dembele eventually did, though.

After being brutally dropped for a Champions League game against Arsenal on October 1, 2023, for "failing to respect the expectations of the team", Dembele has become not just a "different player", as Luis Enrique said himself, but also a different character.

The change in output and attitude is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Dembele's started PSG's three subsequent clashes with the Gunners, and played his part in the Parisians' winning them all, including last season's Champions League final in Budapest, in which he scored the crucial equaliser from the penalty spot.

Of course, the coach's decision to move Dembele into the middle of his three-pronged attack played a massive role in the forward finally realising the enormous potential he displayed as a teenager. However, what stands out most about Dembele now is his willingness to press from the front.

"He now has added value with the ball," Luis Enrique enthused. "That's why he's a Ballon d'Or winner." And it's also why he might even retain his title in a few months' time.

As Dembele prepares to take to the field in a World Cup game for the first time since Lusail, he couldn't really be in a much better position to belatedly make his mark on the game's grandest stage.

A player without a single tournament goal to his name could score several times in a formidable French forward line that doesn't just feature Mbappe, but also assist-machine Michael Olise.

Dembele's game is no longer solely about pace. There's now also poise, productivity and, perhaps most importantly of all, pressing.

Unlike his good friend Mbappe, France's former enfant terrible has finally grown up, meaning even more individual recognition could follow for a man who now always puts his team first.