POGMENTARY: It was all about ‘Brand Pogba’ not Man Utd
Most of this series is less concerned with football. Instead, it is about Pogba
The very fact that Amazon has made a five-part documentary about Paul Pogba gives an insight as to why his time at Manchester United ended with rancour on both sides.
What other footballer would make only 20 starts for the team finishing sixth in the Premier League yet still justify the sort of series that is more usually devoted to whole teams, or revered sporting icons?
And although the series itself, titled The Pogmentary, has clearly been carefully controlled by those around the 29-year-old France midfielder,
it makes no attempt to hide that throughout the turbulent six-year period that followed his £89 million move to Old Trafford, the Pogba brand was at the heart of every decision they made.
“Pogba is something that we built, it’s a brand, it has emojis, it has Pog-mojis, it has cups. He has shows, he has haircuts, and we hope to entertain people with that,” said Rafaela Pimenta, the lawyer who has become the most significant influence on Pogba’s career since the death of the midfielder’s agent, Mino Raiola, in April.
Pimenta’s comments will fuel the anger many United fans felt about Pogba’s priorities. That, coupled with his inconsistent displays, left a sour taste when he departed the club when his contract expired at the end of the season. He looks likely to rejoin Juventus.
“The national team gets the real Pobga, the Pogba from Juventus. With Manchester, there’s something blocking you. I think it’s very stressful, these are stressful times,” his late agent, Raiola, comments in the documentary.
The series does not interrogate why Pogba could turn it on regularly for France yet struggled to do the same consistently in a United shirt. But Pogba says he felt unloved at the club.
“What makes me happy is a project that I’m involved [in],” Pogba said. “Here [at United] I had to come back from injury and they didn’t help me. They didn’t show care, they didn’t care how I was feeling so I had to go to the national team to get my confidence back and stuff like that.”
Viewers see the frustration of José Mourinho, the United manager at the time, when Pogba flies to Miami in 2017 to undertake rehab for an injury.
Mourinho sends Raiola a paparazzi picture of Pogba and his partner apparently socialising, complaining that the rest of the United squad are working hard in training. Pogba insists he was training three times a day but his relationship with Mourinho never fully recovered.
Most of this series is less concerned with football. Instead, it is about Pogba; the father of two sons (Labile Shakur and Keyaan Zaahid); the husband (to Zulay); the friend; and, of course, the brand.
It is a tale of his journey from growing up in a “dangerous” neighbourhood on the outskirts of Paris, where he only had stones to play with, to winning the World Cup.
It explains Pogba’s first departure from United to Juventus in 2012. Raiola says in the series: “Respect is something you give, before you get it back. Mr [Alex] Ferguson thought the family of Paul were exaggerating by saying it and [that] he should have been happy to sign. I told him that for this money [United were offering] my chihuahua would not walk on the grass of the training centre. The break was not about money, it was about no respect, no appreciation, no trust.”
This sense of disrespect reoccurs when United’s latest contract offer to Pogba — worth about £290,000 a week — was made last summer.
On a FaceTime call to Raiola while driving on holiday in Miami, Pogba appears genuinely shocked he is not being offered more. “Paul, you’re in a very special situation. You have no idea,” Raiola says. “Yes, they really want you to stay, but for me the offer doesn’t reflect that. I said, ‘They can’t make this kind of offer and if they really want you to stay and they want to build something with you then this time they have to do something different. They have to put money on the table.’ ”
Pogba responds: “How can you tell a player you want him and offer him nothing?”
United’s answer may well have been that their lack of success, and Pogba’s inconsistent form, meant he had not earned a bigger increase on his previous salary. But the player’s inner circle remain convinced that with Pogba, people should be paying for more than just his talent — there is a commercial premium for his brand.
Or, as Pimenta puts it: “Pogba is something that we built.”
- The Pogmentary is available to watch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.( From The Times)
