OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Paul Pogba to miss 2022 World Cup due to injury

When Paul Pogba decided to originally go in for conservative therapy to deal with the meniscus injury he suffered in late July, the thinking was that it would give him plenty of time to be ready for the World Cup in November. But when his knee didn’t respond well to said conservative therapy in early September, there was no other choice than to go under the knife, thus creating a tight window to try and hit perfectly to contribute at the club level before going to Qatar to defend France’s win four years ago.

Any kind of setback, in all likelihood, would derail things completely.

Well, that setback arrived recently. And things, as you might have guessed, have been derailed completely.

Because of the new muscle injury he suffered during the knee surgery rehabilitation process, Pogba has officially been ruled out for the 2022 World Cup, his agent Rafaela Pimenta confirmed on Monday. Pogba, who has yet to appear in an official game during his return season with Juventus, will now look to the return of club competition right after the new year to make his triumphant return to the Juventus lineup.

Pogba had been targeting these last handful of fixtures prior to the World Cup break to make his season debut after he returned to partial training with his Juventus teammates two weeks ago.

Now, while this almost certainly might as well have a certain section of Manchester United fans doing little dances and having a laugh in front of their phone and/or laptop screen, it’s just another hit to the system that has been an absolutely terrible four months since Pogba returned to Juventus.

Juventus released the following update on Pogba’s health on Monday:

Paul Pogba, in light of the recent radiological examinations performed at J|Medical and the consultation carried out in Pittsburgh by Prof. Volker Musahl on the evaluation of his knee, needs to continue his rehabilitation program.

At least we’ll always have the friendly in Las Vegas. That was fun, but obviously the only chance we’ve been able to actually see Pogba back in the No. 10 jersey again — which, based on the fact that it’s now November, is not a very good situation or development.

But with the injury luck that Pogba has had the last few years, it kinda fits the bill.

It’s yet another setback for a player who has a lengthy injury list that only seems to get longer ever couple of months. This was, of course, the biggest of red flags when Juventus brought Pogba back this past summer. As much as his talents are obvious and how he was going to be a huge addition to Juventus’ midfield on paper, the risk of the next injury happen was there from the start. We didn’t expect it to happen three weeks into his return, but it did ... and now we’re here.