PSG striker Ousmane Dembélé recently caused concern after coming off injured in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Arsenal, as reported by Le Parisien. With a hamstring injury, the Parisian club opted to keep him out of training, preferring to err on the side of caution and recuperate before the second leg.
“Dembele trained on the bangs of the group on Thursday, so was able to test his sensations!
It’s a slight injury!
Dembele was kept out of training on Thursday. The Parisian club doesn’t want to take any risks”
The sports media often have a tendency to amplify the slightest concern, create suspense or sow doubt around players’ health, sometimes for no good reason. This well-known phenomenon feeds the pressure on athletes and the public alike, who find themselves worrying at the slightest physical glitch, however minor.
In the case of Ousmane Dembélé, the facts are simple: he trained outside the group on Thursday to test his sensations after a slight injury. The Parisian club chose to preserve him, without taking the slightest risk, in order to prioritize his recovery and provide him with specific care to guarantee his return to full fitness. So this is not a major alert, but rather intelligent, preventive management of the squad.
This choice is perfectly in line with Luis Enrique’s philosophy, which has transformed PSG into a tight-knit collective, less dependent on a single individual. The Spanish coach has built a squad in which every player counts, precisely to avoid the absence of a single element becoming a source of anxiety or panic. For him, soccer is not about one star, but about a coherent and resilient whole, capable of coping with the unexpected and continuing to perform, whatever the context.