The former Manchester United and Arsenal defender was Rennes sports director when Dembele was sold to Borussia Dortmund. When Dembele was sold to Barcelona, Silvestre spoke to Tribalfootball.com and declared the attacker would eventually win the Ballon d'Or.
Asked about those comments several years ago, Silvestre told Tribalfootball.com: "I was happy for him because I think he had a fantastic season, so it was nice to see him getting that personal reward because it's quite unique. When you look at the list of the Ballon d'Or winners, to be on that list it must be a must be a great moment, so I was happy for him."
On his prediction, Silvestre smiled, "For me it was just my personal view when I first saw him in Rennes.
"When I joined Rennes as a sporting director, he was 18 and so the attribute that I completely saw first of all was his capacity to to win the 1v1 with so much control. It wasn't just easy for him, it was very, very easy. He wouldn't force it. The fluidity of his technique was quite superb.
"You couldn't predict what he was doing. And only the top players have that because most of strikers, if you watch their dribbling ability, after three or four main attributes and the main one they use, that's it. But for Ousmane, it's impossible to know which way he's going to go because he's using his left foot as well as his right foot.
"So there was that. The speed, obviously, at 18, and you know it's got margin to develop at 18 and it's not the finished article so already it was super high.
"And the last thing was his intelligence in the game, he was making most of the time the right choices and I was thinking okay at 18 he's doing this against senior professional players and in a tough league. So I was thinking 'he's got a hell of a career ahead of him'."
Silvestre also admitted: "Yeah, I put him him in that bracket also because I'd played with a young Cristiano Ronaldo.
"I had the same feeling about Dembele. You don't see that very often. So for me, I said it because it was to make him realise how good he was and for people to understand his current status, what he's producing right now. He was quite exceptional."
Mikael Silvestre was speaking to Tribalfootball on behalf of Esports Insider