Report: Paul Pogba ‘one step away’ from joining Juventus

On the first day of June, Manchester United officially bid farewell to Paul Pogba, the first but essentially expected domino that needed to fall before the 29-year-old Frenchman makes a final decision on where he will be playing next.

That next move is looking more and more like it will be a flight back to Turin.

According to Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti on Thursday morning, Pogba’s return to Juventus is “one step away” from becoming a reality. Most reports surrounding a potential Pogba return have centered around the final details of a deal being hammered out over the last week or so. During that time, Pobga has been dropping what some view as hints regarding his future when it comes to his new hairstyle while he’s hanging out in Miami and taking in the thrilling Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals right behind the Boston Celtics bench.

Italian journalist Nico Schira has continuously reported that Pogba will earn €8 million a season with another €2 million in bonuses. Schira says Pogba will put pen to paper on a three-year contract that will run through 2025.

Pogba is one half of the big-name free-agent shopping Juventus has been reportedly trying to do over the last couple of weeks. While meetings with Angel Di Maria continue to go on — Agresti also reported shortly before his “one step away” tweet that there’s nothing really new on the Di Maria front — there actually looks to be significant progress when it comes to securing the services of Pogba in the relatively near future.

And if it’s truly “one step away” then there’s plenty of good reasons to be preparing a celebration or two.

Pogba comes with obvious risk — he will be paid a high salary that will be one of the biggest at the club while having a lengthy injury history that few big-name players in Europe can truly match. He is certainly at a pivotal moment in his career, and it’s going to come at a time where he will be playing a very different role on a Juventus squad that is in transition. He is no longer the young up-and-comer who is going to be surrounded by the likes of Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marchisio. If Pogba does end up coming back — and it’s looking pretty likely at this point — he will be looked at as the leader of the midfield.

Essentially, there’s going to be a lot of hopes pinned to his broad shoulders.

Pogba has reportedly turned down approaches from Paris Saint-Germain and even Manchester City to go for a second spell at Juventus. Let’s just hope that if it does become a reality, it goes a little bit better than the last comeback we saw happen in the recent past.