Opinion: Désiré Doué, sub Tuesday, Jordan Monday | OneFootball

Désiré Doué (21) shone on Monday against Belgium/France (0-1), to the point that Stéphane Jobard, a former assistant coach of the Red Devils, told Le Parisien that he felt like he was watching “Michael Jordan.” That’s remarkable. Less than two weeks ago, people were still wondering whether the Paris Saint-Germain player was losing his place. Modern football really does move very fast. Sometimes far too fast.

One player, one quick label

Let’s make one thing clear straight away: Désiré Doué was excellent against Belgium. And Stéphane Jobard has every right to be excited. That is not the issue. In fact, it is rather refreshing to see a coach talk about a player with stars in his eyes rather than with twelve Excel spreadsheets and a chart of high-intensity runs.

What is more amusing is the whole backdrop around it. On September 17, Doué was coming off a short spell in which he had started two straight matches on the bench for PSG. Ferran Torres was scoring, the competition was getting tougher, and the question almost arose naturally: was Doué slipping down the pecking order? A few days earlier, his absence from the 30-man Ballon d’Or shortlist had already caused some surprise.

And yet, at the very moment his case was starting to become a “talking point,” he was still the most-used Parisian forward since the start of the season. He had started PSG’s first five matches and was coming off a season that ended with a second straight Champions League title, after being one of the standout faces of the club’s first European triumph in 2025.

In other words, the patient was doing just fine. But because he had sat on the bench twice, we had already started looking for the waiting room.

Football is becoming less and less tolerant of gray areas

This may be where the Doué case becomes interesting. Not because it once again exposes the famous “cult of the moment.” The problem is slightly different: we now want every moment to define a status. Ferran Torres scores? He moves ahead of Doué. Doué plays less? He has to win back his place. Doué delivers a great game for France? There he is again, a phenomenon. And if tomorrow he has two ordinary matches, someone will probably ask whether he has “a problem.”

Everything has to produce a hierarchy. Everything has to tell the story of a rise or a fall. It is becoming almost unthinkable that an excellent player might simply be on the bench because another excellent player is playing. Or that a 21-year-old might have an average month without it saying anything profound about his trajectory.

The most amusing part is that the current PSG actually makes that old reading even less relevant. Luis Enrique (56) has a squad full of attacking profiles, and the lineup also depends on the opponent, freshness, the combinations being sought, and the point in the season. Competition there does not necessarily look like a ladder with a first, a second, and a third politely asked to wait their turn in that order.

It looks more like a toolbox. Obviously, that is much less convenient for filling a forty-five-minute TV debate.

What if we just left Doué alone?

There is, of course, a serious counterpoint. Ferran Torres’s competition is real. Two matches on the bench are not imaginary, and Luis Enrique gives his players no immunity. Doué will have to keep performing if he wants to play a lot in such a crowded area of the pitch. It would be just as absurd to turn his match against Belgium into proof that any sporting question was off-limits. But analyzing competition does not require handing out certificates every week declaring who is a starter, a substitute, a fallen star, or the future boss.

That may even be one of the most interesting lessons from the PSG built in recent years: a great team does not need every player to have a place set in stone. It needs players capable of filling several roles, sometimes from the bench, sometimes for 90 minutes, without their value being called into question every time the team sheet comes out.

So let’s enjoy Désiré Doué. His dribbles, his talent, and his bad games too. At 21, he will have plenty of time to be a starter, a substitute, exceptional, frustrating, and probably many other things as well.

As for Michael Jordan, though, maybe let’s wait a little longer. Even he needed a few seasons before people started making ten-part documentaries about him.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.