“He’s among the players I’d sign alongside Buffon”.
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Barcelona’s director of global football Ariedo Braida has claimed the club pulled out of the race to sign Paul Pogba because they felt the France worldwide was too expensive.
Pogba was being strongly linked with a move to Barcelona before completing a switch to Manchester United from Juventus for a world record 105 million euros ($117.2 million) on Tuesday.
Nonetheless, although Braida admits he is a fan of Pogba and that he is a great player, he says the Blaugrana were not in the race for his signature as they were never going to spend the kind of money being asked. All footballers are overvalued.
“We’re talking about an operation of €150m, excluding the salary”. When you get to a certain level, we are getting too detached from normal life. How must one feel to be overvalued? Maybe it will not even influence him, but the pressure must be enormous’.
I think the financial aspect is more than sufficient.
Pogba, who was released by United as a free agent in 2012, saw his profile rise after helping Juventus claim four straight Serie A titles. The loss of Pogba is important, but the club have already proved they can replace everyone making great signings. “Pogba will manage to show his worth at Manchester and there is no doubting his technical quality, but if each game you play is not wonderful then you’re going to be criticised”. [Miralem] Pjanic, [Marko] Pjaca and Dani Alves and [Gonzalo] Higuain – they’re a really good side, but then again if you want to win, you must not have any weakness. When people see certain numbers they think he can win games on his own, but that’s not possible.
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“On paper, Juve are superior to everybody but they are still lacking the finishing touch in midfield, considering [Claudio] Marchisio is out injured”.
