POGBA V BRADY
Two stars collide as equals in Lyon after following their dreams away from Old Trafford
IF THEY were boxers, there’d be no way you would allow Paul Pogba and Robbie Brady get in a ring and go 12 rounds. It just wouldn’t be a fair fight.
One is a six-foot three-inch dynamo who towers over most of his opponents, while the other a somewhat diminutive fireball of energy with a left foot as potent as the finest poteen. The question now is whether Brady can leave Pogba punch drunk when they square up in midfield at the Stade de Lyon tomorrow?
For the first time since they left Manchester United the pair will share a pitch as the Republic of Ireland take on France vying for a place in the quarter-finals of Euro 2016. And what a stage for the respective careers to once again become intertwined.
Both had to leave Old Trafford in order to reach this point but their departures weren’t quite felt in the same manner. There are many false maxims engrained in football parlance and the one about how the only way is down once you leave United is now certainly one of them.
While Brady did have to grind out a Premier League career for himself with Hull and Norwich City after making a late substitute appearance in a League Cup game in September 2012, Pogba has thrived among the elite since eschewing the offer of a new deal from Alex Ferguson and signing for Juventus in the summer of 2012.
Four years later and the 23-yearold has won four Serie A titles, appeared in a Champions League final, won the young player of tournament award at the 2014 World Cup and cemented his reputation as one of the finest midfielders in the game with a reputed price tag in the region of €120million.
Not bad when you consider the catalyst for leaving the English club was Ferguson’s decision to play Rafael Da Silva ahead of him in a Premier League game against Blackburn Rovers in December 2011.
Despite the fact Paul Scholes had retired and both Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher were injured, the former United boss left the teenager on the bench.
‘Bit by bit and the coach never stopped telling me, “You’re this far”,’ Pogba later explained. ‘And I didn’t understand. This far away from what? Playing? From having some playing time? From getting on the field? Or what? I was disgusted.’
Allowing the Frenchman to depart is regarded as one of the costliest errors of the latter Ferguson era, but he maintains that it was the destabilising influence of agent Mino Raiola which swayed Pogba’s decision.
‘I distrusted him from the moment I met him,’ Ferguson wrote in his most recent book, Leading. ‘We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign. Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco. He and I were like oil and water.
‘From then our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to integrate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus.’
Only it’s not quite that simple. Pogba, whose nickname is ‘La Pioche’ (The Pickaxe), relies heavily on the advice of his older twin brothers, Mathias and Florentin, who play for Partick Thistle and Saint-Etienne.
‘We spanked his ass to sign for Juventus,’ Mathias said in a documentary about the midfielder’s first season in Turin.
Pogba, then, will most certainly have understood the emotion felt by Brady as he celebrated his winner against Italy with his older brother, Darren, in the stands of the Stade Pierre-Mauroy. Although what Darren, who works as a barber in Dublin and cut many of the squad’s hair before they departed for France, thinks of Pogba having his own name dyed into the side of his head is anyone’s guess.
If that gives off the impression that he is aloof and lives in a world of his own where he is king, prince but never a jester, the reality is somewhat different.
‘L’incontournable’ (The Inevitable), is the name of the documentary about his life in Turin and it also provided a brief insight into what motivates him after he’s seen scrolling through the names of some of the great names who have represented Juventus and won World Cups and European Championships with their countries.
Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Fabio Cannavaro... ‘I have done nothing in my career. I have won the Scudetto. That is nothing compared to these players’ accomplishments,’ Pogba acknowledged.
He has reached a different level to Brady since cutting the Old Trafford umbilical cord but tomorrow they meet as equals on the international stage fighting for the same prize — a place in the last eight to keep their Euro 2016 dreams alive.