Paul Pogba's Unrealised Potential: Disgraced World Cup Winner Bows Out with Untold Stories

That Paul Pogba might never kick a ball competitively again is disheartening for anyone who saw him rise through the ranks and burst onto the scene at Juventus.

His four-year doping ban, which was backdated to August last year, will end in 2027, a few months after he has turned 35.

In a moving statement on social media, a 'shocked and a heartbroken' Pogba insisted that he would appeal the decision and only then 'would the full story become clear'.

Though highly unlikely, it is possible the Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS) could slash his ban by two years if he can prove the mistake wasn't intentional. He has reportedly admitted to taking supplements that he didn't know contained banned substances.

For a player who has battled fitness issues in his career, one would struggle to see how he would remain motivated throughout his ban to make a comeback once cleared. And even if he did, which club would want to offer him a 'fresh start' at 35?

This explains our opening line - the 30-minute cameo against Empoli on September 3, 2023, might have been the last time we would ever see Pogba playing competitively.

Pogba won 2013's Golden Boy Award

Here was a player who was destined for the stars when he won the Golden Boy Award in 2013. Many expected that he would turn it into a Ballon d'Or one day.

One of the many unpopular opinions I hold firmly on in football is that he was always more talented than Kevin De Bruyne. Yes, I know what I said. It's only that the latter always delivered consistent performances every week, earning him the term 'world-class'.

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Football

Football, like any other sport, takes consistency as one of the parameters to be considered in the big boys' league. There is a reason why Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are referred to as the GOATs and not Neymar, who perhaps is more talented than the two combined.

Paul Pogba's spectacular games

Pogba showed us flashes of his brilliance, and 'on his day', he was unstoppable. The 2018 World Cup final and the dramatic comeback in the 2018 Manchester derby quickly come to mind.

On these two occasions, the midfielder was unplayable, covering every blade of grass on the pitch. His peripheral vision in long-range passes, tackles, and goals was immense in helping his sides to victory. It is the daily dose we see from fit and firing De Bruyne.

The difference with Pogba was that he would pull out a Zinedine Zidane-esque performance in one game, then get lost in fitness issues or what hairstyle to put next that affected his rhythm.

Which trophies did Pogba win?

He might not have won the promised Ballon d'Or or even gotten close to a podium finish, for that matter, but he did enjoy his fair share of big trophies. None bigger than the World Cup, of course, where he became a leader in Didier Deschamps' squad.

He was also part of Juventus' squad, winning four back-to-back Serie A titles and reaching the 2015 Champions League final. He completed a move to Manchester United for a then-British record fee and followed it up with Europa League success and the Carabao Cup - the last club trophy he ever won.

Despite the solid start to his second stint at Manchester United, the rest of his six-year spell was peppered with press attacks on a footballer too concerned about fashion than his output on the pitch, time on the mending table, or not seeing eye to eye with whichever manager was in charge.

So when he returned to Juventus in the summer of 2022, he saw it as an opportunity to kick-start his career. But a knee injury in preseason kept him out for four months, missing France's title defence in Qatar. A relapse in rehabilitation saw Pogba play a combined 161 minutes in the 2022/2023.

Witchcraft, doping, the end

While fighting to be fit again, he was also forced to deal with family issues as his brother, Mathias Pogba, placed him right in a witchcraft storm. The elder Pogba accused his brother of using voodoo on his international teammate, Kylian Mbappe. The case later turned out to be one of extortion and blackmail after it emerged that Pogba was allegedly kidnapped and forced to pay upwards of £11 million as 'protection fees'.

Months later, he was hit by a doping case after high levels of testosterone were found in his samples. When it rained, it surely did pour for a man whose coach, Massimiliano Allegri, has termed 'extraordinary,' as captured by BBC Sports.

And extraordinary he was - he almost wrote the picture-perfect story of a man who came from the shackles of poverty in the tough neighbourhood of Lagny-sur-Marne to win the world - only for one wrong ingestion to cost him a chance to rebuild in Italy.

Whichever way you look at it, this will go down as one of the biggest 'what-if' stories in football.

How wrong decisions cost Neymar's career

The Brazilian was always considered the closest person to the duopoly Messi and Ronaldo shared at the top as football's royalty.

But Neymar's decision to quit Barcelona in 2017 might have been the genesis of him not realising his full potential as a football legend.