Paul Pogba has blasted the French media for their negative attitude toward the national team, while praising the British press for supporting theirs.
Pogba said he hopes the French media will get behind their cause rather than — as the Manchester United midfielder sees it — try to undermine it.
“You’d have to ask French journalists,” he said when asked why the press have been so negative toward Deschamps’ team. “The English media push their team on, upwards.
“Unfortunately, we French push the team into the water. Let’s hope all that changes, and that the journalists build us up rather than push us down.”
“I’m sure we make teams afraid, people can see we make teams afraid,” Pogba said. “We have players who are really developing well, young players who play at their clubs and who are very good.”
“We have players like [Raphael] Varane, [Samuel] Umtiti, who are young players but we don’t see them as being young because they have so much experience, have played so much.
“We have players who contribute so much to this team, and we have the experience we didn’t have three years ago.”
The painful experience of losing the European Championship final at home to Portugal was part of that learning curve, Pogba added.
“It really hurt, the Euro at home, it left scars,” he said. “I think we have learned from our mistakes. I think when there is a match like that, we won’t approach it in the same way. We’ll be a little more focused.”
Pogba has recently returned from a hamstring injury that kept him sidelined in the early stages of the season.
“It’s a blessing in disguise, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Pogba said of his injury, before addressing Eric Cantona’s statement that he is “the brain” of the current United side.
“I really liked that. He’s a legend at United. It makes me want to improve, to keep on working. It means I have to focus more on helping the team as much as possible.”
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