Russia 2018- It's Time For France's Paul Pogba To Shine
ESPN The Magazine|June 18, 2018

After a hellish club season, Paul Pogba is determined to reclaim his joy in Russia. And if he happens to disprove his critics— and his coach—in the process? Even better. 
 

Wright Thompson
Russia 2018- It's Time For France's Paul Pogba To Shine

Paul Pogba stands in his kitchen and mists himself with cologne. The Pogmood is Pogtense. A strong Arabian musk crossed with bright athletic notes might chase away his uneasy feeling. He gives a generous spray on each side of his neck, one spray for each arm, with a torso shot or two for good measure. You can always smell Pogba before you see him. Its work done, the fragrance bottle goes back into his white snakeskin dopp kit, which he can always identify as his because of the enormous gold-plated No. 6 on the side. Like all people who started in obscurity and live in fear of returning to it, his name and image are never far from his line of sight: excessive branding as a sophisticated method of clawing at a crumbling cliff ’s edge. It’s a Tuesday between the end of Manchester United’s season and the team’s FA Cup final down in London, and Pogba had been feeling good until he opened a text message from the team. Now he’s thrown off-center, and this creates widening ripples in the Pogforce.

“The club changed all the travel plans,” his manager says. “They unbalanced him.” The Red Devils are now leaving tomorrow at 7 a.m., the whole trip pushed up a day. Since players are due at pre-World Cup camps, losing a day means losing time to close up houses and carefully pack. Pogba, just 25, lives in a Manchester suburb that’s home to dozens of current and former Premier League stars who whip around the leafy streets in luxury cars. Hanging around his house today are his Parisian boyhood friend and gofer Mamadou, his Bolivian-model girlfriend Maria Zulay Salaues, his Brazilian manager who lives in Monaco and speaks six languages, and, of course, his cook, who hails from Naples and chatters away in Italian as she futzes around the kitchen.

This story is from the June 18, 2018 edition of ESPN The Magazine.

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This story is from the June 18, 2018 edition of ESPN The Magazine.

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