Before stopping a list, Didier Deschamps still works the old way. The coach of the France team notes by hand the names of the players selected. He also sometimes crosses them. This is the case of Paul Pogba, injured and forfeited for the World Cup in Qatar (from November 20 to December 18) and that not without difficulty when you know the relationship between the two men.
In a press release sent to several media including The world, the player’s lawyer and agent, Rafaela Pimenta, made the bad news official. “After medical examinations yesterday (Sunday) and today (Monday), it is extremely painful to inform that Paul Pogba will still need rehabilitation after his operation (of a knee at the beginning of September). For this reason, Paul will not be able to join (…) the French team in Qatar”, she writes.
At 29, the midfielder lost a medical time trial that few saw him winning. The last images of Pogba on a football pitch date back to April. At the time, he still wore the Manchester United red jersey. When he finds Juventus Turin this summer six years after leaving Italy, the Frenchman is still suffering from his meniscus and refuses the operation recommended to increase (according to him) his chances of being operational in November for the World Cup. At the beginning of September, he agrees with the advice of the doctors.
At the same time, the player is taken in spite of himself as the presumed victim of an incredible extra-sporting affair. Since then, his older brother Mathias Pogba has been indicted for extortion in an organized gang and participation in a criminal association, like four other men. The board is black.
But in recent days, the 2018 world champion had nevertheless resumed collective training with Juventus Turin and maintained hope. It was before a new physical glitch on Sunday, with a thigh injury following muscle overload (according to Juventus) linked to the increase in its workload to make up for lost time. Examinations carried out in Turin then Pittsburgh (United States) confirmed the nature of the injury and Pogba made up his mind. This World Cup will be without him.
Without him, nor N’Golo Kanté forfeited since October 18 and a hamstring injury. In less than two weeks, Didier Deschamps lost his midfielder, the one at the heart of the game during the 2018 title in Russia, this association between two men as different as they are complementary. There is “the nice” Kanté, the introvert who has become a darling of the French thanks to the balls recovered and his disarming smiles. Extroverted, solar and able to make his hair go through all the colors of the rainbow, Pogba has not always avoided superficial trials. Not in the France team, not with Didier Deschamps.
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