What happened to Paul Pogba?

When he joined Juventus the first time around in 2012, Paul Pogba explained the origin of his French nickname 'La Pioche', the Pickaxe. "That's the kid who helps the others," he said. "I'm a good kid."

Over the subsequent decade, plenty of bad things have happened to that undeniably good kid. The 2018 World Cup winner was continually torn down by fans, pundits and some of his managers during his six-year-long second spell at Manchester United. A return to Juventus in the summer of 2022 was plagued by injury before a four-year doping ban effectively ended his playing career at the tender age of 30.

And that's before we get to the kidnapping, witchcraft and blackmail.

Here's a look at all the things that have chipped away at La Pioche.

Unachievable expectations

"I am less entitled to make mistakes than others," Pogba has sighed in the past. "I went from the biggest transfer in the world to the most criticised player in the world. Criticism is always here."

Unattainable expectations have been placed upon Pogba ever since he returned to United in 2016 after four trophy-laden seasons at Juventus.

The bar was initially raised by his world-record fee of £89m - more than three times the sum of the previous most expensive central midfielder the game had ever seen; Juan Sebastian Veron, who also endured mixed success at United after arriving in 2001.

Pogba's unique skillset also worked against him. A lithe, 6'4 frame afforded Pogba a remarkable amount of industry alongside the dexterity of his balletic ball control. An astonished Jesse Lingard once gawped: "He's a midfield maestro, isn't he? He's an octopus! You just can't get the ball off him. It's like he grows an extra leg!"

After excelling in a perfectly balanced three-man midfield at Juventus - a club considered to have the best infrastructure in world football at the time - Pogba was shoehorned into a desperately dysfunctional Manchester United setup and expected to do it all - and more.

At the start of the 2019/20 season, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer claimed: "We know we can't get Roy Keane, Veron, [Paul] Scholes, [Ryan] Giggs, [Eric] Cantona in one player." Yet, that the Manchester United manager felt compelled to make such an obvious point highlights the crushing weight of expectation lumbered upon Pogba.

Toxic Jose Mourinho relationship

Jose Mourinho didn't quell the hype, announcing upon the arrival of Pogba that he could "be at the heart of this club for the next decade and beyond".

The Portuguese boss would only last two-and-a-half years at United, skulking off into the shadows after his relationship with Pogba tipped into febrile toxicity. A matter of weeks before Mourinho was sacked in December 2018, he was overheard calling his midfielder "a virus".

Pogba had done his best to downplay any tensions. "A coach and a player don't have to be best friends," he reasoned ahead of the Russia World Cup. Yet, once Mourinho had left, Pogba revealed the dim view he had of the coach's man-management style. Pogba claimed that Mourinho "goes against players" and makes them "feel like they don't exist any more".

The best football of Pogba's Manchester United career came in the months immediately after Mourinho left. Under Solskjaer, a far less confrontational figure, the Frenchman shone in a more advanced role.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship. "What people don't see with Paul is even when he isn't playing, he's contributed loads in the background," Solskjaer insisted. "Sometimes he's even acted as the interpreter between me and different players - even when he isn't playing." Unfortunately for everyone involved, Pogba increasingly wasn't playing.

Injuries strike

Across the five seasons between 2014 and 2019, Pogba missed a total of 166 days through injury. During the 2019/20 campaign alone, he was sidelined by a persistent ankle issue for 277 days.

This is not a question of professionalism. Pogba has employed his own physiotherapist and dietician since the age of 16. Bad luck - and adapting to the ever-changing demands of the carousel of coaches in United's dugout - hasn't helped.

Pogba left United for Juventus in 2022 after playing less than 60% of the available Premier League minutes. For a player who remains the club's most expensive signing of all time, that simply isn't enough.

After navigating an entire half of football unscathed in a pre-season friendly for Juve, Pogba sustained a knee injury which would plague his debut campaign back in Turin. In a bid to recover in time for the 2022 World Cup, Pogba initially opted against surgery. One month later, the lesion in his meniscus had only gotten worse and he was forced under the knife, effectively ruling out his participation in Qatar.

A day after tearing a thigh muscle while practising free-kicks in March 2023, Pogba couldn't bring himself to smile and pose for photographs with fans waiting outside Juve's medical centre. "Sorry, my head's not in it," he said.

Juve boss Massimiliano Allegri revealed that Pogba had "collapsed a bit emotionally" and "has to put his soul in peace". Various off-field issues haven't helped that process.

Family civil war

"Money changes people," Pogba warned in September 2023. "It can break up a family. It can create a war."

It was reported that Pogba had been held at gunpoint and kidnapped in March 2022, four months before he left United for Juventus. The armed assailants held the France international in a flat outside Paris and demanded a €13m (£11.5m) ransom which Pogba tried to pay only for his bank to block the transaction.

Three days after he signed for Juventus, two individuals described as "old acquaintances" of Pogba arrived at the club's training ground in search of payment. Pogba filed a police report in July and only revealed the details of his kidnapping to officers from France's Central Office for the Fight against Organised Crime in August - five months after the initial offence.

That same month, Mathias Pogba released a video on social media claiming that his younger brother had hired a marabout - a west African holy man - to place a curse on Kylian Mbappe, at the price of €100 per hour, ahead of Manchester United's Champions League tie with Paris Saint-Germain in 2019. Paul admitted to seeking the advice of a marabout but only to help with his own injury struggles.

Mathias, who played for Wrexham and Crewe Alexandra without distinction, became embroiled in the blackmail plot against Pogba. After presenting himself to investigators in September 2022, Mathias was detained until his release in December under strict obligations to avoid contacting his brother. He has repeatedly denied any involvement.

The investigation into Pogba's kidnapping is still ongoing.

Doping ban

Pogba didn't even make it off the bench when he was called up for a routine anti-doping test in August 2023. The 30-year-old was initially handed a provisional suspension once the prohibited substance "non-endogenous testosterone metabolites" - i.e. testosterone that was not produced by the body - was discovered the following month.

A second sample was subjected to a further test which it failed, prompting the Italian Anti-Doping Agency (NADO Italia) to slap Pogba with the maximum punishment of a four-year ban.

Pogba will appeal his ban - which would only be two years long if he can prove that the prohibited substance was accidentally taken - but described himself as "sad, shocked and heartbroken". Unfortunately, that particular cocktail of emotions is nothing new.

As Pogba put it himself: "Football is very beautiful, but it's cruel."

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