Midfielder deserves football’s understanding for the kidnapping and threats that are damaging his life and careerIt is seven years since Paul Pogba joined Manchester United from Juventus for a then world-record fee of £89m. He was 23 and had already won four Serie A titles. He had been named young player of the tournament at the previous World Cup. He was a star on the rise, the sort of player who might conceivably drag United out of their post-Alex Ferguson slump.Pogba had apparently only one fault: he seemed a player out of time, a box-to-box midfielder in an age that had outgrown them. Midfields had split into two bands, and he didn’t quite have the tight technical ability to play...
Paris police attacks on Liverpool fans at the Champions League final was yet another example of the hosts’ big game failuresUefa’s report on last season’s Champions League final is impressively uncompromising. It was, it said, “through no merit of those in charge” that another Hillsborough was avoided. “The Préfecture de Police were in effect acting unilaterally to direct supporters toward an entry point that would be unable to cope with the level of demand placed upon it … several key stakeholders have not accepted responsibility for their own failures but have been quick to attribute blame to others.”The report is thorough and unsparing in criticising Uefa and the French authorities. There were supplementary factors, such as the rail strike, problems...
Argentina’s maestro emulated Diego Maradona in leading his country to the World Cup and complete his collection of titlesLionel Messi completed football here, the greatest story ever told. The 26th and last match of his World Cup journey was the final to end all finals, a moment that’s never been equalled before and probably never will be again. So wild that none of it made any sense until he was standing there waving to the stands smiling, and then it all did. It was hard to comprehend what he and they had gone through – an entire career, the most accomplished of all, packed into one absurd evening – but there was closure at last.It was done. The world had...
Striker exploded into life to drag his side back into the contest – but the madcap game was proof that France’s plan had failedIt was never part of the plan for Didier Deschamps to unveil a gambler’s instinct. France’s manager reads from a pragmatic playbook. When he was putting the finishing touches to his tactical preparations for this contest, Deschamps never could have imagined that Kylian Mbappé would have been standing over a penalty with two minutes of extra-time remaining, readying himself to rescue France for a second time and become the first player to score a hat-trick in a men’s World Cup final since Sir Geoff Hurst in 1966.Everything had spiralled out of control, Argentina’s emotion trumping French cool....
Before Sunday’s World Cup final, the striker has become part of a proud lineage who broke cover on the biggest stageThe oddity of this Argentina side is that it arrived in Qatar having gone 36 games unbeaten and yet has still found itself making it up as it went along. For once there seemed no questions about selection. There were few doubts about how Argentina should play or who should play up front with Lionel Messi, even after the injury to Giovani Lo Celso. There was a sense of stability and a quiet confidence. They had won the Copa América last year. There was no need to change anything. Then they lost to Saudi Arabia.Argentina are habitually poor starters at...