Looking back to one of Dembele's first training sessions with the club in early September, the player can be seen feeling his leg around the area that he injured during Saturday's game.
On September 7 the Frenchman took part in his first training session alongside Lionel Messi and could be seen feeling his femoral bicep. Something wasn't right and that something ended, just ten days later, with the 20-year-old facing four months on the sidelines with a ruptured tendon in the femoral bicep in his left thigh. Skip to 40s in the video below to see.
Me gustó un video de @YouTube https://t.co/KfVAyVSTof Así ha sido el primer Encuentro de Messi y Dembélé (primer entrenamiento
— Kevin Alejandro (@CifuentesKevin_) 14 September 2017
Even before Saturday's game Dembele could be seen manipulating the muscle just minutes before kick-off.
Justo antes de empezar el partido Dembele se toca varias veces la zona del bíceps femoral, parece que ya notaba alguna cosa pic.twitter.com/tYJ3AjRpDa
— FCBarcelona Live (@VidaBlaugrana2) 17 September 2017
Idiocy from the player to try to play injured? Or a failure of the Barca medical department to not pick up on the problem? Given Dembele's late move to Barca and the fact that by his own admission he had not trained for up to two weeks before the move, it seems that the youngster overworked himself trying to play catch-up.