{"id":78041,"date":"2026-08-30T21:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T21:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/78041\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T21:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T21:32:18","slug":"espn-ranks-dembele-ahead-of-barcelona-star-as-top-player-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/78041\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN Ranks Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 Ahead of Barcelona Star as Top Player in the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a new ranking from ESPN, Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 ranks first, ahead of FC Barcelona\u2019s Lamine Yamal and other superstars.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy PSG Talk coverage and want to see more of it, add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to make us a favorite and see more of our content.<\/p>\n

The start of another season brings \u201cbest of\u201d lists from many of the top football publications. ESPN is one of the largest, and their ranking of the \u201ctop football players in the world right now<\/a>\u201d places Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 first, ahead of Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Michael Olise, and others.<\/p>\n

The article praises the reigning Ballon d\u2019Or winner as \u201cthe most complete attacker of the current era.\u201d It also points out Demb\u00e9l\u00e9\u2019s physical frailty and that he\u2019s not the most reliable player either. Last season, Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 only appeared in 22 Ligue 1 matches.<\/p>\n

Coming in second was FC Barcelona\u2019s Lamine Yamal. The 19-year-old won La Liga last season and the FIFA World Cup with Spain. However, he only scored nine goals and recorded 13 assists last season. There\u2019s plenty for Lamine Yamal to work on, which is why he\u2019s not quite the top player in the world and is unlikely to win the Ballon d\u2019Or this season.<\/p>\n

Kvaratskhelia Ranks Third<\/p>\n

If football fans weren\u2019t familiar with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia\u2019s game, they were introduced to it during the UEFA Champions League last season, when the PSG star scored 10 goals and recorded seven assists. He was a major reason why PSG defended their Champions League title, and if Georgia qualified for the World Cup, he might be the favorite to win the Ballon d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n

Having two of the top five players in the world certainly bodes well for PSG as they look to win a third consecutive Champions League title. They\u2019ll need Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 and Kvaratskhelia to stay healthy and return to their best form by the second half of the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

PSG\u2019s defense of their Champions League title begins on September 9 at the Parc des Princes as they host Slovan Bratislava.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a new ranking from ESPN, Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 ranks first, ahead of FC Barcelona\u2019s Lamine Yamal and other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-78041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}