Umtiti: Dembe’le’ will be lost as France’s No.9 – ‘It’s not the same game as at PSG’

Former France World Cup winner Samuel Umtiti has delivered a stark warning over the use of Ousmane Dembélé as a central striker for Les Bleus, insisting the Ballon d’Or winner cannot replicate his Paris Saint-Germain form in the national team setup. Speaking on RMC’s After Foot program, the 2018 world champion was categorical: “If you put Ousmane [Dembélé] up front for the French national team, he won’t have the same impact as he does at PSG. It’s completely different.”

The 32-year-old Umtiti, who retired from professional football in 2025 and now works as a consultant for RMC，argued that Dembélé’s success as a false nine at PSG under Luis Enrique is built on a carefully orchestrated system that simply does not exist with France. At the Parisian club, Dembélé has flourished in a central role, helping PSG secure back-to-back Champions League titles and earning the Ballon d’Or. “At PSG, he starts as a No. 9, but he moves around and there is a lot of movement. The whole team has to share the same identity and play with the same idea,” Umtiti explained.

“To put Ousmane as a No. 9 for the French national team, it’s not the same game,” Umtiti said. “At Paris, when he plays as a 9, you have to look at what he does, the positioning he has. For the national team, it’s not the same. The players who play alongside Ousmane won’t have the same positioning as those who play at Paris.”

Umtiti went further: “I think he will even be lost playing as a No. 9 for the national team. I remain convinced that, for the national team, playing as a 9 for Ousmane will be difficult – unless the attacking play is worked on for days and days. But I don’t think that will be the case.”

The core of Umtiti’s argument is systemic. “If you put Dembélé alone through the middle as at PSG, you have to ask the entire France team to play like PSG,” he said. “He doesn’t have the same teammates around him at all as he does at Paris.” Umtiti also dismissed the notion that Dembélé’s elevated status should dictate his position: “We have to stop talking to me about Dembélé’s new status.”

The debate is particularly relevant as France progress through the 2026 World Cup. Dembélé has been notably more discreet in the national team’s attacking setup than he is at PSG, occupying a different position under Didier Deschamps. For Umtiti, Dembélé’s qualities are better expressed out wide, and he should not be deployed as a central striker – even in the absence of Kylian Mbappé.

Umtiti’s comments echo a broader tension: the difficulty of transplanting club-level tactical alchemy onto the international stage, where preparation time is limited and cohesion is harder to forge. For now, Deschamps faces a choice – adapt his system to unlock Dembélé’s PSG form, or keep the winger in a role where, according to his former teammate, he will remain “lost.”