From ESPN

"Barcelona have agreed terms with Borussia Dortmund for the transfer of attacker Ousmane Dembele, subject to the completion of his medical.

Barca will pay an initial fee of €105 million, and Dortmund confirmed that add-ons could see the fee rise by 40 percent -- taking the deal to a potential €147m.

France international Dembele, 20, arrives to fill the void left by Neymar's €222m departure to Paris Saint-Germain, who paid the Brazilian's full release clause earlier this summer for the largest transfer fee in history.

Barcelona said Dembele's five-year contract will have a significantly higher release clause of €400m. The club gave him the No. 11 shirt previously worn by Neymar.

The initial €105m fee matches Paul Pogba's move to Manchester United from Juventus last summer as the second-largest all-time in Euros. There was no mention of add-ons in Pogba's deal.

"Dembele gives us width, something we lost and we needed," Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde said in a news conferece. "He can play left or right, or even through the middle, he is quick and he is technically good. We hope he's going to add a lot to the team. We're really excited to have him."

Asked about the difference between Dembele and Neymar, Valverde said only: "The difference is one is with us and the other isn't.""

" big money for small turnovers"
Pogba, mkhitaryan, martial lol

you just opened a huge can of worms, and of course I knew exactly what you just pointed out, which wasn't even my point in the first place..

If you know why do you still play yourself...

@Lodatz

For instance: Bale started dribbling more, and one of the chief concerns that Barca fans especially threw at him was that he wouldn't have the dribbling skills they expected in Spanish football. I recall people even saying that because he was from the PL, he clearly couldn't be anywhere near good enough to impact the Spanish league. Thankfully of course, Bale proved all those people wrong.

Untrue, mate. Look at the tremendous amount of space Bale had to dribble in the Premier League. The English football style is a very direct, back-and-forth one. Teams often utilize the long ball and always intend to move forwards. This stretches the pitch vertically, and allows dribblers to have more space. Bale cannot dribble for his life in Spain.

Spanish teams aren't nearly as good at counter-attacking as the English teams are, so once they gain possession, they often tend to wait for players to push up and start building up their play. It's why Barcelona's high-pressing is so successful in La Liga but isn't in the Champions League. Barcelona take advantage of the lack of counter-attacking in Spanish football, but their recent CL campaigns have seen their high-pressing style exposed by good counter-attacking teams (Chelsea, Bayern, Juventus, PSG).

Bale is a victim of this. YouTube most of his dribbles with RM, and you'll find that almost all are on the counter, and none are nearly as impressive as his Tottenham days.

When Ronaldo traded United for Real he all but pumped steroids into his step-overs, taking literally years to develop his current ruthless efficiency (mostly thanks to Mourinho's counter-attacking philosophy), and used to win games all by himself by, wait for it, dribbling.

Again, not entirely true. His first season yielded 33 goals in 35 games - almost a ratio of a goal-per-game. His following seasons have all seen him follow suit. Granted, he was still very much a dribbler and used his flair in his first season at Madrid. But his second season saw him drop that for an increased presence in the box, and from 2011/12 onwards he was basically a pseudo-winger.

In fact, one of the most marketable features of La Liga exports is their technical dribbling ability.

It's... their passing?

C'mon, dude, what are you smoking? You need my stuff instead; it's had the hallucinogenics taken out. ;)

Or we can put the hallucinogens in the Backwoods and have a good time. :)

@Dynast I'm not saying I don't believe you mate but this video... well, it does show quite a lots of nice skills and dribble. All in La Liga. :(

Are you sure its so rare and unused in La Liga? :(

The English football style is a very direct, back-and-forth one. Teams often utilize the long ball and always intend to move forwards. This stretches the pitch vertically, and allows dribblers to have more space. Bale cannot dribble for his life in Spain.
the most marketable features of La Liga exports is...
It's... their passing?

I think that it's the control of the ball, meaning the technical side of football that dominates in Spain while in England it's more physical.

That includes passing, first touch and dribbling as well, it's strange to think that in Spain you can't dribble when their best teams are very technical with their game, ball comes the player already knows where to pass and how to make the space for the pass to happen, the freedom of dribbling or lets say running with the ball is very much encouraged.

A direct style of play requires less dribbling and less touches with the ball, you basically skip a fair amount of the pitch to give the ball to the target man whoever that is, that alone makes Spain more technical in your own explanation, which means that in Spain there are more dribblings going on.

I think you mixed up dribbling with space and without much space meaning when there is no counter attack, players need to be technical to keep the ball in their posession which requires control of the ball, by your logic you're giving the passing to English football but calling it something else while for you in Spain it's about passing so your whole statement is an oxymoron.

Example of a player that is English and technical is Scholes, most people would say he just passed the ball but it's not only the pass and vision it's also the control of the ball, technique and the creation of the space for the pass before it actually happens that made him a technical player.

In other news BVB has signed yarmalenko to replace the talents of Ousmane Dembele. wonder who we will offload for 100 million next season

HAHAAHAHAH quickzy , that isn't really dembele (the future of barcelona) is it?

Barcelona need a new signing in every midfield and defensive position. Ever since Puyol retired Barcelona has not taken the adequate steps to replace key players.

probably the most befitting option in the market to replace neymar so the price kind of is irrelevant. wonder what BVB gonna do with all that cash!

@Nigel Griezmann is.

@tiki he's not really 'in-the-market' as he would only be able to leave in january due to atleti's transfer ban meaning they can't bring in a replacement till january and barca kind of need a replacement for neymar now!

@nigel Well, Griezmann has a release clause but even so, I doubt a player of his caliber would join a direct rival while his team are enduring a transfer ban.

So after a year of debut (with very unfortunate injury), am I the only one who thing this is a nightmare transfer (consider the total price), a truely panic buy despite all his potentials?

Let's not talk about potential, every good player is a potential and investment blah blah... Let's just look at the ridiculous amount and the result.

overpriced and needs more time, dribbler type of player so I kind of see how the cost is high, probably around 20 million overpriced. he is an unfinished product, he needs more maturity in the final third. lots of skills and tricks but doesn't know how to convert it to goals and assists.

Supposedly Messi has taken him under his wing much like he did with Neymar. If true and if Dembele can learn and improve he could be one of the best in a few years. That injury really screwed him though. For now, he's very overpriced.

That he's overpriced is simply a reality. I wouldn't be too harsh on him though, it's only been one season, he's young, and he had an injury. No reason to throw him under the bus right now. Besides, it's not like he's been bad.

Overpriced but not a panic buy, our direction we’re planning to bring him earlier... bad buy for me tho, when Mbappe was offered to Barca for 120m. It was worth it, but they preferred Ousmane.

Circumstances : was living in the hotel while his family was in France. Umtiti invited him to live with him. Barça has found him a house an brought his parents despite their divorce, he is Muslim they found him eating unhealthy food because he wasn’t eating meat, they adapted their food for him. He got injured due to stress and bad preseason preparation having problems with Dortmund. J’en doesnt speak Spanish they brought him a personal teacher.
All off pitch issues got fixed, once he will adapt to his new life he will pretend to play a role at Barca, it’s a little early for that atm.
I’m waiting next year so he can adapt to Spanish Football. I like the fact that he is not focused on Messi and try to play his own way. Good point for progression.