Europe 1 with AFP 7:31 p.m., March 13, 2023

The return of Paul Pogba is more complicated than expected.

Dismissed by his coach during the reception of Friborg on Thursday (1-0), due to a delay before the round of 16 of the Europa League, the Juventus midfielder was injured again and will be absent three weeks.

The season in hell continues for Paul Pogba who, still arrested for three weeks, is still just as far from Juventus Turin and the France team, whose jersey he has not worn for a year.

Three days before the first list of the year for Blues coach Didier Deschamps, for the start of qualifying for Euro 2024 against the Netherlands on March 24 and Ireland on March 27, Juventus formalized Monday morning a "first grade lesion to the adductor of the right thigh" of the "Pickaxe".

The star of the Blues, who felt discomfort on Sunday morning while training to take free kicks, will only be able to resume "after the international break", within "three weeks", a source told AFP. internal to the club.

Logically, the midfielder with 91 selections will therefore not be from the next French gathering and will therefore have to wait until June, at best, to find Clairefontaine.

A very long parenthesis away from the Blues, since March 2022, for the one who was the soul of the 2018 world champions and one of the natural candidates for the captain's armband after the international retirement of Hugo Lloris.

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"Not up to it"

Pogba did not hide his dejection by dribbling the supporters who were waiting for him on Monday at the end of his exams hoping for an autograph: "I'm not in the mood for that, sorry", he told them in Italian.

The blow is all the more severe as the player had finally just started his season after injuring his right knee at the end of July and having had to be operated on in early September, missing the World Cup-2022 in the process.

Star rookie last summer from Juve, where he returned after six years at Manchester United, the one who will turn 30 in two days made his first appearances (35 minutes in total) against Torino (4-2 ) on February 28 and AS Roma (0-1) on March 5.

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Impatience and bewilderment

Last week, the biggest salary of the bianconero locker room (8 million euros annually, according to the press) had been excluded from the 1/8 final first leg of the Europa League against Friborg (1-0) for arriving late the day before .

Pogba never stops feeding the impatience and perplexity of his leaders but also of the tifosi juventini with this dark season where nothing has been spared him, including off the pitch.

Last summer there was the explosion of the attempted extortion case in an organized gang targeting him, in which his brother Mathias Pogba is involved.

Some tifosi have also criticized him for having delayed having surgery after his summer injury, betting on a recovery without intervention before having to do so a few weeks later.

During the winter break, photos of the player in the mountains reacted, forcing Pogba to ensure, through a video where he pretended to be skiing, that he had obviously not taken the risk of putting on skis.

But the tifosi have no choice but to wait a little longer, as Massimiliano Allegri reminds us: "We are waiting for him, he must manage to get up and become the player he was before", launched Sunday evening the coach.

Even if, behind the scenes, its leaders would be less and less patient.

According to Gazzetta dello sport, Juve would not rule out a separation at the end of the season, despite an almost insoluble economic equation due to a contract binding the player to the club until 2026.