Paul Pogba is back — but not as you know him.
Six hundred and sixty-nine days after his last appearance as a professional footballer — and following a shortened doping ban — the 32-year-old French midfielder was presented as a Monaco player on Thursday.
When Pogba rejoined Manchester United for a then-world record €110million (£94.7m; $130m at current rates) fee in 2016, the Premier League side announced his signing with the hashtag #POGBACK across social media platforms. One video showed a hooded figure holding a ball before revealing himself to be Pogba, a red devil shaved into his dyed blonde hair. Another from Adidas featured him dancing to Stormzy lyrics.
The announcement of his Monaco signing was very different.
There was some of Pogba’s usual bravado in a video entitled ‘La Renaissance’ — rebirth — which showed his face being carved into a rockface, Mount Rushmore style. He joked around while holding a pickaxe, a reference to the literal translation of his nickname ‘la pioche’ — a joker, in Pogba’s case. French fans once serenaded him as that after their 2018 World Cup win.
But the clip that went viral was far more private. It showed Pogba fighting back tears as he signed his new Monaco deal, with the club’s chief executive Thiago Scuro watching on. “Thanks for the trust,” Pogba says in English, once he has regained some of his composure.
— AS Monaco 🇲🇨 (@AS_Monaco) June 28, 2025
What was going through his head in that moment?
“It’s true you saw a lot of emotion. It’s very rare to see me cry like that, so I hope you enjoyed it,” Pogba said with a laugh at his Monaco presentation.
“A lot of images came into my head. The story of doping, injuries and so on, to come back and sign for a club that believed in me. All that came back when I was signing the contract. I couldn’t hold back. It was a moment of joy, too, and that was important for me. A lot of determination, but also a lot of joy.”
Some things never change with Pogba. He still attracts media attention like almost no other player, silencing Monaco’s packed press room as soon as he walked in.
He also commands the same respect from fellow pros. Just look at the love heart emojis posted under that video of him crying by former team-mates such as Raphael Varane and Paulo Dybala. Or how fellow Monaco signings Eric Dier and Ansu Fati spoke about him in their presentations on Thursday. Dier called his arrival a “great thing for the club and for the league”, while Fati said he had admired Pogba since he was a kid at Barcelona’s academy.
Pogba said he still likes dancing, haircuts and nice clothes. He spoke of his wish for his three kids to celebrate one of his goals with a ‘dab’ (below, with Jesse Lingard), a reminder of a bygone era when he had the world at his feet. He laughed and joked with reporters while speaking of the importance of living in the present. But it was hard to believe him when he said he was “the same Paul Pogba, but with another, maybe bigger determination”.
(Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
After all, so much has happened since that return to United, the club he once joined as a youngster from French side Le Havre. He lifted the Europa League and the League Cup in that second spell at Old Trafford but often incurred fans’ wrath for mixed performances. Then there was an ill-fated return to Juventus, where he made just 10 appearances in his first season back, even before the doping ban, due to repeated injuries.
Off the pitch, that sanction capped an extremely turbulent few years. In 2022, Pogba was the victim of an extortion attempt by his brother Mathias, who was handed a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty in December 2024.
Then, in February 2024, Pogba received a four-year suspension for a failed doping test the previous August, seemingly marking the end of his elite career at 30. His last game before that ban was a 2-0 win for Juventus against Empoli in September 2023.
The test, carried out after a game against Udinese the month before, detected testosterone not produced in the body. At the time, Pogba said he felt “sad, shocked and heartbroken that everything I have built in my professional playing career has been taken away from me” and vowed to clear his name.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) eventually ruled he had ingested the substance dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) unintentionally after “erroneously” taking a supplement prescribed by a Florida doctor. According to CAS, he had claimed to treat “several high-level U.S. and international athletes” and had assured Pogba he would be “mindful” of his anti-doping obligations.
Pogba before his most recent match, a 2-0 win for Juventus against Empoli in September 2023 (Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images)
Pogba accepted he had committed a strict liability offence and, in October, his ban was cut to 18 months, meaning he could return to training in January this year and play competitively again in March.
The question was: where? Even playing again did not seem guaranteed when he had his Juventus contract terminated by mutual agreement in November.
“It’s true there were moments or times of doubt when in my head there was an angel and devil, let’s say: ‘Are you going to return, maybe not, maybe it’s finished’,” Pogba said.
“It was difficult at times. But my family, above all my wife, pushed me (by saying), ‘You’re going to return, you’re going to be back on the pitch’. There were always people around me who (said), ‘No, Paul, this will pass’.”
What was his day-to-day life like?
“Dropping the kids off at school,” he said with a smile. “I was a very present dad. And after that, I’d go to training and then pick the kids up from school. I spent a lot of time with my family and training. When I travelled, I travelled with my trainer, and I tried not to go three days without training. Because I told myself that it (signing for a club) could happen at any time. I always had this positive thought in my head that I wanted to get back on the pitch.”
Monaco presented an enticing project to Pogba, who has never played professionally for a team in France’s leagues. Scuro, their CEO, spoke of the midfielder’s experience and mentality, referring to Pogba’s desire to return to the France squad for next summer’s World Cup.
But Scuro urged caution, too, explaining how Monaco are implementing a specialised three-month plan to get Pogba up to speed again. The midfielder expressed his desire to play in their opening Ligue 1 game against his boyhood side Le Havre on the weekend of August 17, before Scuro knocked that down in his separate briefing with reporters.
“There’s nothing 100 per cent but I can guarantee you he’s not able to be on the pitch against Le Havre, he was probably joking,” Scuro said. “This has to be something very outstanding to happen.
“He was training by himself. In terms of load and intensity, it’s very hard to reproduce being in an environment of a top club. It’s a team sport, it’s very hard for you to have 20 guys on the same level as you, challenging you in terms of intensity and technical decision-making.
“It’s about building him physically first, then step by step going onto the pitch, getting used to the load of training and the intensity of our training sessions. The last stage of the building-up is to be able to train with the group, then you can increase the load.”
Monaco CEO Thiago Scuro with Pogba (Frederic Dides/AFP via Getty Images)
The only apparent needle from Pogba came when he answered a question in Italian about his old side, Juventus.
“Juve is still in my heart,” he said. “Lots of things happened. Some things were good, others less good. Andrea Agnelli (the former Juventus chairman) sent me text messages, that was support. When I didn’t receive it, that was different. I’ve always loved Juve, I will always love them, but the past is the past. I don’t want to talk about a war, there’s no war.”
He declined to speak about other offers he received, saying, “I don’t regret anything”. And there was a similar, Edith Piaf-like sentiment when he was asked whether he was vengeful about his experience since that failed doping test.
“I’m not vengeful, I’m grateful because it helped me to grow, it helped me see real life, what can happen in life,” he said. “I’ve got no revenge to take out on anyone, I’m just happy to be back on the pitch and do what I enjoy the most in the world.”
Time will tell if he can return to the smiling Pogba of old there, too.
(Top photo: Frederic Dides/AFP via Getty Images)