Juve, Pogba and a gesture of honour. Minoliti’s comment

The midfielder’s season was an ordeal, meeting the club in this situation would benefit both

Paul Pogba owes a lot to Juventus. We’d be tempted to say he owes her everything, but we don’t want to completely dismiss what he learned at Manchester United when he was a young boy who arrived from France. It was precisely from United that he left at the age of nineteen, on a free transfer, to land precisely in the Juventus club, where the good soul of Mino Raiola, who was his mentor, had brought him, and after both had come to loggerheads with Sir Alex Ferguson. It was the summer of 2012, it seems like a lifetime ago, and it kind of is. That Pogba was a big boy who promised so much and would keep even more in his black and white four-year period, which gave him glory, results, popularity and obviously money.

At first under the guidance of Antonio Conte and then with Max Allegri, with whom he established a playful relationship, while fully respecting their roles, which led them to challenge each other in basketball and shooting at the “small doors” (the coach beat him regularly. ..), Pogba honed his immense talent, grew in tactical knowledge and established himself as one of the best midfielders of his generation. Result: four championships, various cups and cups and the Champions League final in Berlin lost to Barcelona, ​​which is still the only one played by the French champion.

Between Turin and Manchester

When, in 2016, Manchester United came to take him back, paying out the record sum of 105 million – with a very rich commission for Raiola and an astonishing capital gain for the club – it seemed to most that it was the natural development of the parabola of a champion, who reached the richest championship in the world, leaving regrets in the fans who had seen him at work, but also the awareness that one could not say no to such an operation. Let’s quickly pass over what Pogba’s next six years at United were, certainly not living up to expectations, both from the player’s point of view and from United’s perspective. In a nutshell, it can be said that Pogba of the Turin years was rarely seen in Manchester, certainly not continuously. So it didn’t seem strange that, as the contract expired, the possibility of a return of the Frenchman under the Mole became more and more insistent.

The opposite

Indro Montanelli said that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime… And after all, sooner or later, we’ve all experienced it: searching for places, people, situations that have given us joy in previous moments of life. And that’s what Pogba also wanted to do, and Juve with him, when last summer he agreed to return to the Juventus base. Once again on a free transfer, with a contract until June 2026 and 8 million net per season plus 2 in bonuses. Fans cheering, Pogba beaming and the club convinced they have replicated the old deal. Things didn’t go like this, in fact the exact opposite happened: first the right knee injury, badly managed by the Frenchman, then the long recovery and when the right moment finally seemed to have arrived, new stops, up to the last relapse. In between also not exactly professional behavior on the part of Paul, with the love of the fans transformed into annoyance and the patience of the increasingly subtle club.

The nice gesture

It is clear that the operation proved to be a failure, from all points of view. Not least the economic one, obviously. But here at least, Pogba could pull off an old coup of his own by trying to meet the club. Given that he has played a pittance of 35 minutes this year, he could at least give up the bonuses foreseen in the contract, as the club has already asked him to do, without getting any opening. We don’t expect him to suspend his salary, like the great Fernando Redondo did when he moved from Real to Milan and was immediately blocked by a serious injury. Nor that he plays at the contractual minimum, as Damiano Tommasi decided, in Rome, returning from a long break. Or that he leaves a month’s salary of 250,000 euros as Mario Mandzukic did, again at Milan and in recent times. But a sign, a move, a gesture of honour, as it was once said, would be desirable and also – allow us Pogba – due. Of course, for practical purposes it wouldn’t change much because 2023 is now gone and reducing the salary would not turn back the clock. But for the future, yes it would count. It would mean a small compensation to the club that had welcomed him back, people would appreciate it and even Paul could feel a little relieved now that the setbacks have sapped his morale. Think about it, there’s time.

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