MIDFIELD GENERAL
PAUL POGBA ENDED HIS FIRST SEASON AS THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE FOOTBALLER ON A HIGH: WITH A MAN OF THE MATCH PERFORMANCE FOR MANCHESTER UNITED IN THE EUROPA LEAGUE FINAL. THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, FRESH OFF A PLANE FROM STOCKHOLM, HE SAT DOWN WITH ESQUIRE TO TALK MOURINHO, FERGUSON, HAIRCUTS, DANCING AND TEASING JOURNALISTS
First, a lone voice. “You can shove your fucking Isis up your arse,” he sings, to the tune of the folk song “She’ll be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain”. And within seconds, the Tiger Tiger bar in central Manchester is juddering with 2,000 United fans as one. “YOU CAN SHOVE YOUR FUCKING ISIS UP YOUR ARSE.”
The day before I meet Paul Pogba, back in May, is a creepy, eerie one. Manchester United are set to play Ajax in the final of the Europa League in Stockholm. Fans live for these big European nights and it is an ambrosial early-summer’s evening, heaven sent for standing outside a pub drinking strong continental lager. But Manchester is numb. Less than 48 hours before the match kicked-off, a bomb was detonated a few metres from Tiger Tiger at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people. The city is utterly discombobulated: one trite example is that even Manchester City supporters want United to win tonight.
But, as the Isis chant shows, Mancunians are sardonic, even contrarian. This, after all, is the city that shaped Mark E Smith, Morrissey, the Gallaghers. Cantankerousness is in the DNA here. All of which makes it a rather appropriate adopted home for the 24-year-old French midfielder Paul Pogba. He’s been called “football’s closest equivalent to Kanye West”, in that he can be both brilliant and utterly baffling, often simultaneously. He’s certainly, by some margin, the most singular and divisive player at work in the Premier League right now.
During the early stages of Euro 2016 — a tournament in which France would go on to reach the final — Gary Lineker asked: “Is Pogba the world’s most overrated player?” The critiques picked up venom after his £90m transfer from Juventus to Manchester United last summer made him the world’s most expensive player. Jamie Carragher, the Sky Sports pundit, called him “a defensive liability” after one match and Frank Lampard said that he’d not found his best position yet. When figures showed that hospitals in Greater Manchester spent around £100m on agency staff in 2016, about the same amount as their deficit, the sportswriter Paul Hayward tweeted, “The same cost as Paul Pogba. Same city.”
José Mourinho, who brought Pogba to Old Trafford — just four years after Pogba had left United for buttons — became punchy on his man’s behalf. It all got a bit silly, really. However, if the diehard Reds in Tiger Tiger are anything to go by, they don’t like Pogba. They love him. Perhaps it’s a contrapuntal Mancunian thing: “If everyone tells us he’s a waste of money…” Standing at a urinal pre-match (classy, I know), I ask a fan for his prediction. “Two-nil,” he replies. “Rashford scores the first, Pogba the second. That will shut all the fucking tossbags up — press shite.”
The guy turns out to be pretty much on the money. United do beat Ajax 2–0, but Pogba actually scores the opener after 18 minutes. United’s topsy-turvy season has been given a garish new paint job, covering the cracks that saw them finish 24 points behind Chelsea in the league: they have won the League Cup, the Europa League and the FA Community Shield if you want to count that (which, evidently, Mourinho does as he instructs his players to hold three fingers aloft to the crowd in Stockholm). They have also, crucially, secured Champions League football for the 2017–’18 season.
In Tiger Tiger, something more cathartic has happened, too. At kick-off the mood had been sombre: it seemed wrong to cheer too loud or laugh too much. Now there is a release, an outpouring. Perhaps the most guttural roar of the evening is saved for when Pogba is interviewed on the pitch after the final whistle. “We won for Manchester,” he says. “We played for the people who died.”
Part One: The Football Questions
Esquire: Congratulations. You must be in a good mood today.
Paul Pogba: “You’re lucky, eh? Nah, I’m always in a good mood. Always. You have to be. There are so many things in life that make you sad, you have to be happy.”
Mourinho said afterwards that often this season he’s been made to feel that United were “the worst team in the world”. That he was “the worst manager in the world”. Do you feel you’ve proved some people wrong?
“We’re the worst team in the world, yeah. But we have three trophies. So [laughs] people can say what they want. Are we the worst? OK, no problem, I accept that. I accept that we didn’t play well, we didn’t do this, we didn’t do that. I know what we did — we won three trophies. That’s all I know. And that’s all that matters. Because you can be the best team in the world, you can play great football and you win zero trophies. And who remembers them? No one. Right?”
Have you felt like the worst player in the world?
“Yeah, as well. The worst player in the world wins three trophies! Haha! Yes, that’s fine. That’s fine, I accept it. The most over-rated, too much money, too much spending, everything you can say. This guy, for the next month he will enjoy his holiday with his medal and the trophy — nice! And I’m going to the Champions League…”
You’ve been lucky then?
“I’m quite lucky for the worst player in the world — I accept that, oh yes.”
Personally, how do you rate your performances last season? “We can always be better and we’re learning. It was the first season with Manchester United, we changed the coach, we changed everything. It’s different, I came in for a lot of
IF THE DIEHARD REDS IN TIGER TIGER ARE ANYTHING TO GO BY, THEY DON’T LIKE POGBA. THEY LOVE HIM