Ousmane Dembele’s injury problem has to be one of the saddest tales in Barcelona. The Frenchman has what it takes to become one of the best players in the world, but injuries have been a major stumbling block for him.

Since joining FC Barcelona in 2017, Dembele has been seriously injured four times, which has made him unavailable for approximately 175 days and 36 games.

The 21-year-old was last injured on Wednesday during Barca’s 5-1 win over Olympique Lyon in the Champions League, or should we say got more injured. Dembele didn’t fully heal from a hamstring strain he suffered in FCB’s previous match but the club’s medical staff gave him the okay to play on Wednesday.

Head coach Ernesto Valverde put the young winger in the game in the 70th minute when the match was 2-1. Dembele scored a goal in the 86th minute to help the Catalonians win but the 20 minutes he spent on the field were costly. The former Borussia Dortmund player went from straining his hamstring to tearing it and is now out for three to four weeks. Barca will play Atletico Madrid and in the CL against Manchester United during this interval.

Dembele had previously sat out lame after picking up a hamstring injury against Getafe after chasing the ball and dragging it with a backheel on September 16, 2017. The French international held his hamstring in pain after the backheel. He was only a Barcelona player for 23 days then and that injury kept him on the sideline for 106 days. It was Dembele’s first and worst injury in a Barca jersey.

Interestingly enough, he injured it in quite a similar manner chasing the ball from going out of bounds before dragging it with a backheel in a game against Rayo Vallecano on March 9, 2019. He was questionable to play against Lyon but as mentioned the youngster did take part in the game and torn his hamstring after straining it.

As for the speedster’s second major wound, it was a fibrillar rupture on his left thigh that kept him out from January 15, 2018, to February 10, 2018, while his third was an ankle injury that put him on the sideline for 18 days.

Surprisingly, the winger never picked up a serious injury in his first two seasons as a pro before joining Barcelona. AS reporter Javier Miguel noted that Dembele covers more ground while playing for the Blaugrana side, which could be one of the main reasons for his injury problem in Spain.

The French international isn’t the only one who has had to go through constant injuries after joining Barca’s first team. Two of the world’s best players were injury prone too, FCB captain Lionel Messi and ex Barcelona man Neymar Jr.

Dembele needs to become the latest Barca star to overcome such troubles. Nutrition, training regime, proper warm-ups, and stretching can all factor the health of star athletes. It’s certainly the short list of where to start in diagnosis the now repeated problems.

Furthermore, Dembele also has to get more familiar with his body, perhaps a more experienced player would’ve known that his body wasn’t quite ready to return on the pitch if he was in Dembele’s situation in the match against Lyon.

The attacker’s injury woes have been going on for two seasons now, which isn’t too long, but the longer it lasts the harder it will be to overcome. If you look at Neymar, he learned how to prevent constant injuries after his first season in Spain. On the flip side of the coin, there’s been plenty more who have struggled to overcome such ailments in the manner the Brazilian did, such as Alexandre Pato, who saw a bright career start washed away in constant injury ailments.

Dembele must join the ranks of players who have crawled out of the cavernous treachery that is repeated injuries. Barcelona and the soccer world would be better with the starlet blossoming into his full potential and taking the pitch week in and week out.