Paul Labile Pogba

 By  Akhmad Zamroni

Source: www.thesun.co.uk, premierleague-static-files.s3.amazonaws.com, www.ansa.it

Since the emergence of Zinedine Zidane in the late 1990s, France has continued to produce potential football players. After Zidane with his special talent was able to become the most important player who led France to become world champion in 1998 (World Cup 1998) and European champion in 2000, several new stars were expected to inherit the greatness of Zidane and his friends (Lizarazu, Deschamps, Desailly, Thuram, and others) in promoting France's name in the European and world football scene. Several names stuck out and became a byword for being able to play brilliantly at big European clubs.

One of them is Paul Pogba. This player is widely talked about by European footballers not only because of his phenomenal transfer value (from Juventus to Manchester United), but also mainly because of his impressive play. Apart from his game which has not yet developed optimally at Manchester United, while at Juventus, Pogba was able to impress and lead the team from Turin to win important titles.

As a French player, Pogba may not have been able to align himself with Platini and Zidane (who in his golden age also played for Juventus) in bringing the Zebra Team or the Old Lady to the top of European and world football levels. However, this seems more dominant due to his young age when he defended Juventus. Pogba is still in a state of development when he played for Juventus from 2012 to 2016 when he was 21-24 years old (however, he has been able to show impressive playing skills and insight).

Back to Manchester United

Pogba's return from Juventus to Manchester United marked his stardom as a world-class football player. He moved to the legendary English club with a transfer value of around 1.5 trillion rupiah, the highest record in player transfer history before being broken by Neymar's transfer value from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain which was 3.5 trillion rupiah. The transfer value of 1.5 trillion rupiah is proof of recognition of Pogba's ability and stardom.

Before being bought by Juventus, Pogba was a Manchester United player in the era of coach Alex Ferguson. Not being a core player for MU, he was recruited by Juventus in 2012. Since joining Juventus, he has shown his shine as a talented player who has played an important role in catapulting Juventus to the elite level of European football. During his four grazing seasons with Juventus, his appearance continued to climb, which lured Manchester United to pull him back with a fantastic transfer value.

Pogba, whose full name is Paul Labile Pogba, was born in Lagna-sur-Marne, France, on March 15, 1993. Pogba started his football career at the age of 6 by joining a local club, Roissy-en-Brie (1999). At this not-known club, he lasted until 2006 and then moved to Torcy (2006-2007). From Torcy, he moved to a member club of the French premier league (Ligue 1), Le Havre.

At Le Havre he began to show his talent and leadership. Pogba played for Le Havre for two seasons (2007-2009). In his second year, he was trusted to be the captain of the U-16 Le Havre team. He successfully led Le Havre to beat the elite and tough teams, such as Lyon and Nancy, and won second place under Lens.

The talent he showed while defending Le Havre was smelled by big and leading European clubs. In 2009, Manchester United recruited and entered Pogba into the club's football academy from the City of Manchester. Pogba's presence at the Red Devils academy has not been maximally developed because he did not get the opportunity to play in the MU team --- he only made three appearances under Alex Ferguson.

This caused Pogba, who has a height of 191 cm, to move to Juventus in 2012. At the club that has been nicknamed the Old Lady, Pogba's game has developed very rapidly thanks to the coach's touch and wide playing opportunities. He often started while Juventus was under coach Massimiliano Allegri. Allegri even made Pogba as one of Juventus' mainstay players, apart from Buffon, Pirlo, Vidal, Bonucci, Chiellini, Tevez, Higuain, and Dybala.

Source: http://talksport.com

Pogba's technique and vision of the game at Juventus continued to develop until he finally emerged as a star. Thanks to his brilliant game, Juventus won four Serie A championships in Italy and two runners-up of the Champions League (2014-2015 and 2016-2017). With Juventus, he has recorded 178 statistics, scoring 34 goals.

Pogba's brilliant performance with Juventus made many of Europe's big and leading clubs eyeing him. Manchester United may be the club most “disappointed and sorry” with the positive and revolutionary changes that Pogba has experienced because the club that gave birth to Cristiano Ronaldo once wasted and “dumped” Pogba to Juventus. MU finally had to pay a heavy price for his mistake by redeeming Pogba at an extremely expensive price --- MU management had to pay 1.5 trillion rupiah to pull him back from Juventus.

Having played flat at the start of his presence at MU and suffered from an injury for a while, Pogba is now starting to find his best form again. Under Mourinho's cold hands, he was transformed into one of the prominent stars in the competitive English Premier League. His stardom, like grazing with Juventus, is starting to appear again and with the support of quality players, such as Ibrahimovic, Matic, Herera, Martial, Rashford, Lukaku and Carrick, his game continues to climb.

Slowly, Pogba has begun to be able to free himself from the heavy burden of being the player who once held the title of the most expensive in the world. He has started to be able to play independently and enjoy so that his ability to dribble, score goals, provide assists, and read games has begun to appear again. Several times he became the main actor and inspiration for MU's victory, such as when MU overthrew Newcastle United with a score of 4-1 in the Premier League and beat Ajax 2-0 in the Europa League final.

Statistical data from BBC Sport taken in the 2016/2017 season show that MU's performance and productivity will increase if Pogba drops to compete. According to BBC Sport's records, from 33 matches that MU has played with Pogba, MU has successfully won 19 matches, scored 57 goals and bagged 57.6 percent of the wins. However, from 16 matches for MU without Pogba, the Red Devils were only able to win 6 matches, scored 20 goals, and only had 37.5 percent of victories. This shows, Pogba's presence has made a positive contribution to MU's game.

In the French national team, Pogba also has a significant role. Since 2008-2009, Pogba has entered the French U-16 national team, then successively in 2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013, he has become one of the mainstay players of the Les Blues U-17 team, U-18, U-19 and U-20. In the 2013 U-20 World Cup, Pogba, who was trusted to be the captain of France, successfully led Les Blues to become champions.

World Cup Champion

Since 2013 also, thanks to his impressive game, Pogba was recruited by coach Didier Deschamps to enter the French senior national team. He made his debut for the senior national team on March 22, 2013 in the Franco-Georgian match which France won 3-1. Since then, the player who used to operate as an attacking midfielder has been poor across the French team. He became one of the important players who helped lead France to win the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

With his current abilities, Pogba has the opportunity to succeed Messi and Ronaldo as the world’s best players. If he is able to maintain consistency, increase his role in the team, and lead the team he defends to win the highest level titles in each category (domestic league, Champions League and world club champions), he can align himself with Messi and Ronaldo. Both with MU and the French national team, Pogba has the potential to win important titles in order to inherit the achievements of Messi and Ronaldo.

At MU Pogba played with first-class players with a coach Mourinho’s “Special One” has a great chance to win the English Premier League, Champions League and club world champions. As for the French national team, he also has the support of talented players, such as Mbappe, Kante, Greizmann, Dembele and Mattuidi, so that he has a big chance of winning the European Cup and even the World Cup. Supported by his vision and leadership in playing, both at the club and in his country’s national team, Pogba has the potential to match and even surpass the achievements made by Messi and Ronaldo.

As an important note, Messi and Ronaldo each have indeed won the Ballon d’Or award five times and several times led their clubs to win the domestic league and the Champions League, but until now they have not been able to bring their respective national teams (Argentina and Portugal) won the most prestigious trophy and has the highest level in the sport of football, namely the World Cup. With his current age, Messi (30 years) and Ronaldo (32 years) seem to only have one chance to win the World Cup, namely in the celebration of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. However, at the age of only 24 years, Pogba still has at least two chances to win the World Cup with France (2018, 2022 and 2026) so that he has a great opportunity to surpass Messi and Ronaldo in achieving high achievements in the biggest soccer competition, the highest, and most importantly.

With his towering body, he excels in top-ball duels. However, with his long legs, he is also very skilled at dribbling, tackling and grabbing the ball from the opponent's feet. At Manchester United, he has been described as a strong, skilled and creative player. His long legs looked like tentacles while running and dribbling and tackling so that while at Juventus he earned the nickname Il Polpo (the Octopus).

Source: www.thesun.co.uk

When he returned to Manchester United, Pogba said, “This is the right club for me to achieve everything I hope for.” As for MU managers, Jose Mourinho, stated, Pogba can be “the heart of the team” for the next decade. Mourinho said, “He (Pogba) influenced our style of play. We all know, myself and other players that certain players can affect the level of team play. Together with Pogba, we have more creations (to play with). I am very happy.” According to Mourinho, Pogba is in a different class from other United midfielders.

Massimiliano Allegri, who coached Pogba at Juventus, praised Pogba as a player with the opportunity to become a superior midfielder. “Pogba has an incredible game, but he has the quality to do better than that. He can also become the strongest midfielder in the world,” said Allegri. “He moves with the right tempo in attack and defense.”

In the midst of competition from the bright midfielders in the Italian Serie A competition, Pogba is considered by the Italian national team coach, Cesare Prandelli, as the best midfielder in the world. Pogba has shown his ability as one of the star players of Serie A. Prandelli feels lucky to be able to witness Pogba's actions in Serie A with Juventus.

Prandelli said, Pogba has a classy ability as a midfielder. “I can say, Pogba is the best midfielder in the world. He can play in several positions and has extraordinary physical and technical abilities,” said Prandelli as reported by L'Equipe. “He knows when to be in an important position and how to cause problems in the opposition area. Besides that, Pogba also has a very strong character as a player,” continued the former Fiorentina coach.

In the Premier League, Pogba was also able to win attention and praise. He started his comeback in the Premier League with a sluggish appearance due to the psychological burden of being the most expensive player in the world (before Neymar's record was broken) and was also injured for about two months. However, after recovering from injury, he was able to rediscover his best form.

His Manchester United and French national team colleague Anthony Martial praised Pogba as one of the best midfielders in the world. “Paul is a mentally strong player and he believes in himself. He’s a big guy, he has good technique and has good endurance. I can say that he is one of the best midfielders in the world,” Martial told MU’s official website. “He’s young; so he has to work a lot and he can get better. You can see that he’s still the same Pogba. He is cute, always smiles, he is not too serious. I always see him laughing and he is my best friend. He is the same person on and off the pitch. He will continue like this,” said Martial added.

Martial hopes to win many titles with Pogba. As well as winning many titles with United, Martial has the ambition to win the World Cup for France with Pogba. The striker who is nicknamed the supersub is optimistic that Pogba will continue to maintain his brilliant game so that he can win the title of the best player in the world. “We want to win a lot of trophies together at United and we are also eager to win a World Cup for France. If he continues his game and fixes his shortcomings, I think he can win the Ballon d'Or in five years,” hope Martial.

Another Manchester United midfielder from Spain, Ander Herrera. praised Pogba as one of the best players in the world. “I think he is a top player, maybe also one of the best five players in the world. He can grab the ball, make accurate kicks, dribble and defend well; he has everything. We are very lucky because we have him,” said Herrera. “When you think about the best players in the world, they are very good but maybe they are very good at certain things. However, Paul is very good at everything; so we will enjoy performing with him,” continued Herrera.

Pogba's glories also caught the attention of Neville, the former Manchester United captain. “Pogba is a player who has character and personality on the pitch. He also always appears confident,” said Neville as reported by BolaSport.com from SkySports.com. Neville said Pogba had atoned for “sins” last season when he was deemed to be less than good and did not reflect the price of 105 million euros (Rp 1.5 trillion) United paid to send him back from Juventus. “For one year, Pogba was burdened by high prices and expectations on how to perform,” said the former captain of the Red Devils team.

Praise and criticism came from former Real Madrid and Liverpool coach, Rafael Benitez. Benitez acknowledged Pogba’s greatness as a player. Benitez compares Pogba to Steven Gerrard, a former Liverpool and England national team star. “They are different. Stevie was a top player over the years. He’s very consistent and can make a difference in every game, with or without the ball. He is a top player. “Pogba is also a great player, but he still has to be consistent like Stevie for 10 to 15 years,” said Benitez.

The French national team coach, Didier Deschamps, considered Pogba as a central midfielder who has complete abilities. “Paul showed his best performance. Big players appeared in some big matches,” said Blaise Matuidi, Pogba's partner in the French national team. “France is performing as a good team with a list of brilliant players; one of them is Pogba,” said Fernandinho, a midfielder for the Brazilian national team and Manchester City.

Star player, Neymar, even said that he expressed his admiration for Pogba. While still playing for Barcelona, ​​Neymar expressed his interest in playing with Pogba to defend El Barca. Neymar admits he admires Pogba and hopes to have a duet with the tall French player in Barcelona.

Together with Neymar and several other prominent young players, Pogba is currently considered to be in the second layer after Messi and Ronaldo (who are in the first layer) as the best players in the world. Pogba who idolizes Ronaldo de Lima (Brazil) and Zidane is almost the same age as Neymar. In general, Pogba's current ability is still below Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar. However, in the next few years, with hard work, discipline and consistency, Pogba can align himself with these three brilliant players. Together with Neymar, Pogba is a serious candidate to replace and continue the stars of Messi and Ronaldo.