And Dembélé wasn't interested, that's an important part. Also 100m isn't massive at all for Dortmund, you just have to look at prize money and TV righs, if Dortmund don't hit their targets, Démbélé can easily become a 40m or less sell. Just as an example Monaco made 40m with CL in 2015, you don't qualify and that's what you lose.
Ousmane Dembele | Fee agreed with Dortmund, medical on Monday, Barca go from MSN to LSD
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And Dembélé wasn't interested, that's an important part. Also 100m isn't massive at all for Dortmund, you just have to look at prize money and TV righs, if Dortmund don't hit their targets, Démbélé can easily become a 40m or less sell. Just as an example Monaco made 40m with CL in 2015, you don't qualify and that's what you lose.
There's a difference between Ronaldo and a young prospect.
See I actually rate Dembele and Martial for that matter higher than Mbappe however small that might be. They can do a lot more with the ball at their feet. They're incredible and skillful dribblers and just that good with a ball at their feet.
I used to see Martial as the better finisher but Mbappe's performances so far have convinced me that he's more clinical and Martial somehow has gone backward on his finishing.
The big difference I see here is that Mbappé is coming from a very hot 6 months in a team that allowed him to flourished especially on the biggest stage(CL) while Dembélé's side has been quite compared to Mbappe and Martial the most unfortunate of the trio has found himself with a manager who doesn't rate his kind of player and been sent to warm the bench more often than not thus almost cancelling all the good wills he got himself in his breakthrough season with us.
Sometimes it's about luck and favorable circumstances. You're smart enough(or more like x players agent is smart enough) you get yourself a place where you can both showcase your talent and that place is good or structured enough to compete on the biggest stage in order to showcase your talent.
I'm perfectly well aware of Mbappe talent but he's far from being this sole talent on a league of his own some are preaching after they've finally witnessed him on the biggest stage.
Yeah right. He is a very good player and an excellent prospect. But no Ballon d'Or material really.
What do you mean by come early here?
I think @JPRouve would have meant formally contact the club early &I make formal bid to get the feel about fee, signaling the selling club to look for replacement.
If you go by rumor then host of clubs are always interested, but no formally approach. That is to pay whatever Dortmund wants as @JPRouve put it as Dortmund would need to account for the risk into the selling fee.
Because he did think he was ready for the biggest club just yet, wise move on his part, and yes a €80-90m return on a player after a year is a big deal.
@2ndTouch what was that? United are a bigger club than Dortmund and we had to sell Ronaldo when we didn't want to, same as Dortmund will have to sell Dembele if he really wants to go to Barca.
Your first sentence tells me that you are one of the people that haven't really seen Mbappé, Mbappé is a better dribbler and have quicker feet than Martial, that's not even close.
I'm sure a lot of people made contact with his representatives along with Dortmund, he wasn't that big of a secret.
Where do I write him off? Dont put words in my mouth(hand). He is an excellent player and can have a very long future here, but in terms of potential he isnt of the absolute highest bracket. He isnt in the Dybala, Neymar, Dembele, Mbappe, maybe Acensio, Pogba, Hazard bracket etc. Who can reach that stage.
Thing is contacting agent, casually asking than going formally is different. Not talking about morality of tapping up here which clubs do that all the time. It's how you approach make big difference. You need to make the selling club convinced you're serious with your inquiry so they put the utter most effort to plan a future without X player or they would charge insurance fee. For the sake of making example, Barcelona was keeping Coutinho for quite a while. However, they didn't really make a serious inquiry leading to Coutinho committed that new contract with L'pool. Now they shifted their pant, and it's known that Coutinho really wants the move. Both are at L'pool mercy.
So you think clubs make formal bids and then ask the player if he wants to join?
You're making this sound more complicated than it should be. Players won't have to score over 50 goals or replicate what Messi does in order to win the ballon d'or, they'll simply need to be one of the very best at a given time, it's that simple.
Again no one will need to replicate Messi or Ronaldo feats to win it in the future, that's simply a misconception and you need to rethink that part of your understanding about ballon d'or requirement.
And saying x player is ballon d'or potential should be restricted to only those who are guaranty to win it which doesn't even make sense given no one would know but it too just reiterate and bring a point home about players huge potential.
It's actually funny and contradictory on your part to say that no one should be said they are ballon d'or potential unless they win it then went ahead a named Neymar and Griezmann despite neither of them having won it yet.
Anyways the point is that the ballon d'or requirement is not about replicating Messi or Ronaldo feats but being the best or at least one of the very beast player in a given period.
Ronaldo was at your club for several years, an established superstar, and still he stayed for another season before he finally left for Real. Nobody expects Dembele to stay at Dortmund forever, but if Barcelona wants to pry him off after just one season, they'll have to meet Dortmunds demands, and not what Barcelona or some caf poster thinks is reasonable.
No. Both at the same time. Signal the selling club is as important as seeing whether player is interested in the move. Which Barcelona was late in both. Now they're pretty much pulling a Verratti (I like this as verb now) again while trying to force a sale giving the selling club uneasy feeling.
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Are you genuinely failing to understand the situation or you are doing it on purpose?
We are in August, Dembélé is a key player that you can't replace on the fly, firstly because there isn't a all lot of players like him and secondly their clubs aren't exactly interested in selling them now, so either Dortmund replace him with a player that they overpaid or they replace him with an inferior player. In both situation they are the ones taking the risk to not reach their objectives because of the loss of a key player and that loss could for example see them out of the CL, which means that they will lose a lot of money.
Because of that Barcelona will have to pay the difference or find an other target.
Trust me I've watched Mbappe a lot, given not dating from as far back as you guys who've followed him since before he became hot but like anyone else I took interest in him after he broke onto the scene.
And I see Martial as the better dribbler and ball player.
It's actually funny, I think me and you have had this Martial vs Mbappe vs Dembele debate before. Probably over a year ago or something.
Right I'm going to have to feck out of this conversation, missus probably thinks I'm cheating! 
I'm right and you're all wrong btw.
I'm right and you're all wrong btw.
Being the very best means exactly replicating what Messi and Ronaldo are doing now. I don't understand your point here. Scoring 25-30 goals is very normal among any top striker in any top team, but scoring +40 goals each season is the unique thing that makes both the very best players and winning it consistently. Do you imaging we'll see a Ballon D'Or in the future winning it by scoring 20 goals in a season ? Really ? In the presence of attacking talents that are scoring loads of goals each season ?
You just put " the very best player in this time " and didn't explain it. What's meant to be the best player in the world at a certain time ? it's scoring loads of goals and winning major trophies with your club and national team, which, surprise, what Messi and Ronaldo did to win this prize. What do you expect the best player in the world to do to win it if not that ? Don't put a phrase or a term without just explaining it. Give us the criteria of being the best in the world to win this prize.
The bold part is clearly from your imagination because I didn't say it. I said saying Ballon D'Or potential on any young player is nonsense because not each player is a material for a Ballon D'Or and winning this prize isn't as easy as this phrase makes it seem. Neymar is clearly the best potential to win it in the future because he has the easiest chance to score loads of goals + winning CL or WC with Paris or Brazil respectively.
Again explain to us the criteria of being the best player in the world and how did we judge Messi and Ronaldo as the best players in this current generation if not for their crazy goal scoring numbers and trophies they keep winning ?
Just put some base we can discuss based on it instead of just saying " being the best player ".
To be fair Dortmund were happy to sell lewendowski rather than run down his contract to anybody outside the bl from what i remember but he insisted on going to bayern so unless dembele has his heart set on bayern that example may not be 100% relavent
Barca are going to have the same issue we had when we sold Ronaldo, everyone knows how much money you have to spend and they'll be quoting for all of it.
I could just as well have said that you'd need to only score 25 if everyone else scores 15. It was you last sentence that I was replying to more than anything, "Martial is a very good potential but it's unrealistic to reach the same numbers as Messi and Ronaldo so definitely not a ballon D'Or potential".
My point is that you don't have to have the potential to be able to replicate what Messi and CR has been doing to have a chance to win Ballon D'Or, you just need to be better than everyone else that year. It's a prize awarded to the best player of the year so whatever Messi and Ronaldo did in the past hasn't got anything to do who's the best in 10 years time.
Take the 100m sprint for example. After Bolt retires it won't matter if anyone will ever be able to run as fast as he did, you would just need to be faster than the guys you're running against to be considered the current fastest man in the world. If everyone else runs in the 11's then you would win every gold medal on tap if you run mid-10's, which might be shit compared to Bolt&co, but because it's significantly faster than the guys next to you, you still win.
Haha you're one of those football manager kids, funny ol' lot you are but very, very entertaining, keep it it up.
The point you're making is either not accurate or not clear to me, though. There's no year when everyone will score only 25 goals or less or something like that. These numbers are achieved by any striker in any top team in Europe currently. The outstanding thing is scoring +40 goals consistently in each season and winning major trophies which make you Ballon D'Or contender. It's not just replicating Messi and Ronaldo, but the fact both Messi and Ronald makes something more than any other player currently is doing and that makes them the best in the world, so any player willing to win the prize should do the same in the future as well or how will they win the prize ?
I find saying "being best in the world is enough" is hardly any different from what I'm saying. What does it mean to be the best in the world ? Isn't it to score loads of goals and win major trophies ? Well that's exactly what I'm saying, and that's what Messi and Ronaldo achieved. If you want to be the best in the world at any given time to win this trophy you need to do both these targets. Otherwise you're not really any different from any other top player in the world, you're a top player but not a Ballon D'Or contender.
But all the other guys they sold were in the last year of their contract.
No he really isn't. As good as Mbappe is with the ball, Martial is the better dribbler and and has better control of the ball. What Mbappe has is better decision making, a quicker mind. So, his touches and dribbles tend to take him away from the danger while Martial can pull off some outstanding pieces of skill but still end up isolated. Also, Mbappe playing in a much more high tempo, attack oriented team doesn't hurt his chances of looking good.
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I feel All these agents are taking advantage of the situation of how much the top clubs can go to the lengths in terms of transfer fee's and agent fee to secure a talents' signature and that's why Good potentials who first directly landed in bigger clubs are now being made to sign initially for Clubs which are a tier lower than the top clubs to ensure the agents earn a good chunk of fee from transfers of their clients to top clubs who are willing to spend massive fee on their clients. Dembele is one of the examples. There are many more out there as similar examples.
Far too low
They will win by being better than everyone else that year, not by being as good as players who won it in the past were. You will most likely not have any players reaching the kind of heights that Messi and CR have done in the nearest future so there's no need to have to do what they did to be considered the best. It doesn't make any sense to say that you would need to do what previous winners did to win as you're not competing against them.
If I go back to my analogy.. You don't necessarily have to beat Bolt's Olympic final winning times to win the next Olympics, you just need to beat the guys next to you. And since the other guys most likely won't be doing times in the 9.40 range, you can still become the current fastest man in the world while still being slower than Bolt was.
As far as goals go.. Cannavaro, Zidane, Figo, Kaka and Nedved etc won the Ballon without scoring more goals than everyone else, and when our current two goal machines retire I believe, or hope at least, that goals will become a less important factor again.
I think Mbappe's first year is not so much different with martial's First year at united under Lvg. Mbappe was massively helped by a superior midfeild behind him last year where they found him with service and space more often than not, Martial on the other hand excelled with How Lvg used him in a similar fashion.
Some of the martial goals and Finishes and decsions and general play in first year were on the similar level to what mbappe had last year , but last year martial had issues because of how he was being made to adapt differently in a higher tempo which he could not last year which was also amplified by Rashford's success in that position and lack of support from left back in attack.
If mbappe is also made to fit in a New Philosophy of play his weaknesses may also be Exposed where he needs to adapt and improve his game.
And he is now intrested ? just after a year?
I Feel it was his agent who was not intrested.
I'm not talking about a year ago and his agent had nothing to do with his move to Dortmund.
This is the sort of player we should be going for if we want to become elite again. If we don't get him then fair enough but not even trying would be a huge mistake.
I'd let the Caf train me if we got him
After Perisic, we should try and get a cheeky bid for Downing.
i remember last year a substantial amount of people saying "why aren't we in for him? this kid's talented/special", went to dortmund for peanuts. one year later €100M is far too low
We were in for him though. He just went to Dortmund to get proper game time.
we were? i don't remember seeing any reports, either way, when pursuing special talents you'd hope we would be capable of persuading/convincing them. I mean its not like our team is stacked and exceptional talents always get a look-in at United regardless of age
You need to also see it from another perspective though. Dembele is/was just raw talent, at a team like Dortmund he could develop at his own pace without being scrutinised and the spotlight being constantly on him. It's respectable that he opted for Dortmund when so many top teams were in for him which could have offered him far more money.
He'd have to compete for his spot etc. here which isn't always ideal for young players.
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