The Daily Bee: Barcelona Attempts to Kick out Ousmane Dembélé

Good morning, Fear the Wall. Happy Friday!

How the turntables...

Remember when a certain Catalan Giant persuaded Ousmane Dembélé to skip training to press for a transfer, tried to lowball Dortmund and got stonewalled, and spent €135 million on a player who has yet to play more than 2,000 minutes in any La Liga season? Well, turns out all that just might have blown up in their faces:

I don’t want to get into this whole situation, as it’s pretty complicated, and you can read about it in full on ESPN here. To make it a long story short, Barcelona are attempting to kick Dembélé out of their club because he won’t agree to a contact extension.

I don’t like Dembélé, and I don’t like how he left BVB, but I can also forgive him as he was young and dumb at the time. I just find it funny that Barcelona thought they could bully their way into signing the player they wanted, and through their own toxicity and poor financial decisions, the plan catastrophically blew up in their face. If only a level-headed BVB writer had penned an op-ed on Barca Blaugranes at the time, itemizing reasons why signing Dembele would be a bad idea. Oh, well, no skin off our back.

The point of this story is that BVB are going to get €5 million, due to a bonus clause in Dembélé’s contract. Thanks, Dembouz.

Mahmoud Dahoud returns to training

BVB’s midfield was dreadful against St. Pauli. Fortunately, Dahoud, who was held out of the game for precautionary reasons due to a bout of lumbago, has returned to training. According to Ruhr Nachrichten, it’s very possible that Dahoud could return to the starting XI against Hoffenheim.

The Daily Buzz

I may be taking a trip to London in the fall. Which London club should I visit for match? (Excluding top six, i.e. other than Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham)