Borussia Dortmund pulled off a transfer masterpiece earlier this summer when they won the race to sign highly-rated teenage forward Ousmane Dembele from French club Rennes amidst interest from the Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona. Since signing for Dortmund, the French forward has dazzled on the pitch with his outrageous show of dribbling and ball control. The 19-year-old has already become one of the star attractions of the Bundesliga and has so far scored one goal and provided two assists from his six appearances in the league.
Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel has been very impressed with the youngster and in his recent comments showed his long term plans and admiration for the player. Speaking to reporters about his prized asset, Tuchel said, “Of course we love his dribbling, we love his bravery, we love his pace, his control on the ball. We know a lot of the facets of his game from the training. Ousmane is a player who brilliantly combines dribbling passing and making space to a very high level. That’s extraordinary. It’s a great pleasure to work with him and it’s a big challenge for him to face everything he has and still be the level he is. We hope that we can provide him the environment he needs to develop in the way he wants and that he is a great assistance for us also.”
However, with recent reports of Real Madrid monitoring the player who was previously on their radar, Tuchel has reasons to be wary. Florentino Perez has been someone who has always opted to fill his team with players having skill and flair and with Cristiano Ronaldo approaching 32, there might be plans in place to supplement the team with yet another forward with exceptional skill and pace who will take over the mantle from the Portuguese superstar.
The only good news for Borussia Dortmund is that Real Madrid are blocked from registering new players in the next two transfer windows and if the Los Blancos do not manage to get their appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) overturned, they will have to wait until January 2018 before they can register new players.
Formerly, Barcelona experienced a similar case of transfer ban but still signed players like Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal without registering them. It is expected that Real Madrid can opt to do something similar if they decide to move for Dembele in the summer transfer window. They would be able to loan him out for six months to another club until January 2018 when they can finally register the player.
Having previously stated his ambition to play for Barcelona one day, it would be something of an anti-climax and the transfer deal will not be any short of excitement to track over the period of time. Real can once again grab the headlines regarding their transfer strategy in a bid to capture the player who will be keeping up their tradition of securing glamorous and flashy players in the future as well.
