PSG and Paul Pogba, a story of repeated near misses | OneFootball

Across 15 years, PSG explored signing AS Monaco’s French midfielder Paul Pogba more than once, yet none of the moves materialised.

According to L'Équipe, during Tuesday’s play-off first leg in Monaco, which ended 3-2, the injured Pogba asked Paris players to go easy.

The first contact dates back 14 years, when the 19-year-old, then at Manchester United, refused to extend despite Sir Alex Ferguson’s pressure. Leonardo, then leading Paris’s sporting project, admired him, but Juventus were already too far ahead by winter 2012.

Pogba was long reluctant to return to the Paris region where he grew up. In summer 2021, after Gianluigi Donnarumma arrived, he resurfaced on PSG’s radar and hostile banners appeared at the Parc des Princes and Camp des Loges, with some fans recalling his 2018 praise for OM.

By winter 2022, after injury and with his deal up in June, he weighed his options. Juventus and Real Madrid were in the frame, and in Paris it was said his camp had initiated contact. Leonardo held meetings, but PSG chose not to push on and discussions ended before spring.

The 2022 shake-up under Luis Campos changed nothing, and Pogba joined Juventus as a free agent on 9 July. The Roissy-en-Brie native never became a PSG player. As in March 2019, when he was suspended for Manchester United’s win that eliminated PSG, the 32-year-old was set to watch Wednesday’s match at the Parc from afar.

Source: L'Équipe