Ousmane Dembélé (28, Paris Saint-Germain striker) has had a transformative 2025 season. Repositioned in the center of the park, he has become more effective in front of goal and is hungry for more goals than ever before. In an interview with France Football, he talks about this new role and his desire to be ever more decisive.
Dembélé: “Every game now, I tell myself I need to score three goals”.
“At the start of the season, people were talking about your clumsiness in front of goal. And then you started scoring more and more. Is there a rational explanation for your new lucidity?
It’s all part of the picture. Of course, there’s the positioning on the pitch as a number 9. You don’t make the same effort as a winger. When you get in front of goal, you’re a bit fresher. Sometimes, all you have to do is finish, tap in a goal, as they say, and I love it! It worked for me to go through the middle. I’m even more lucid in front of goal. It’s also a question of confidence and mental strength.
Since the start of the season, I’ve been telling people around me before every game that I’m going to score three goals today. After that, I may score one, two or none. But every match from now on, I tell myself that I have to score three goals. And if it’s one or two, that’s fine too!
Dembélé “I’m even hungrier, and it showed”.
Are you hungrier?
Yes, I’m even hungrier, and it’s showing. I said at the start of the season that I wanted to be decisive, that I wanted to score a lot more goals, and that’s also happened thanks to my team-mates who have served me very well. They’ve done a fantastic job.
And I feel confident. When you score on Saturday, three days later you still want to score and the following week you still want to score. It never stops.”
Ousmane Dembélé’s hunger for goals is unprecedented at Paris Saint-Germain, in stark contrast to his previous seasons when he sometimes lacked a real shot on goal. This year, his mindset has changed radically: he approaches every match with the ambition to score, setting himself lofty goals and refusing to settle for the minimum. This new determination has made him more decisive and a genuine attacking leader, capable of pulling the whole Parisian team in his wake.
As part of this success story, Ousmane Dembélé never fails to emphasize the importance of his team-mates. He regularly praises their work and their ability to serve him in the best possible conditions, recognizing that his form and effectiveness in front of goal are also the fruit of a close-knit, high-performance team.
This humility and recognition reinforces the cohesion of the Parisian dressing room, where Dembélé asserts himself not only as a hungry striker, but also as a collective player, aware that his individual success depends on the quality of the team.