Paul Pogba referred to the difficult moment he went through after testing positive in a doping test and being kept off the pitch for a long period:
“When the doping sanction came out, my phone blew up for two days, and then, nothing. Total silence. People I saw as brothers disappeared. Agents stopped calling, friends who were suddenly busy. Football makes you feel loved, but it also shows you who is really there”, the Frenchman said.
“And there was someone from whom I never expected a message: Cristiano. He only asked me: ‘Is your family okay? And how are you holding up mentally?’ And I’m not going to lie, that hit me hard. Days later he told me that if I needed anything for me or my family, I should call him. At that moment I wasn’t talking to Cristiano Ronaldo, the global star, I was talking to a man who knows pain, pressure, and loneliness”, the midfielder concluded.
