Former Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho may have left Old Trafford but he has carried his grudges with him, in particular, the notoriously difficult relationship he endured with Paul Pogba.
Pogba was stripped of vice-captaincy by Mourinho and dropped for Champions League games during his stint with the club. Their relationship continued to deteriorate until Mourinho was eventually sacked by the club.
Now, in a coaching seminar held in his native Portugal, Mourinho explained he risked being sacked if he handled Pogba incorrectly. Per the Telegraph, he revealed that Pogba submitted requests to be treated differently.
"We would play a team that was 30 kilometres from Manchester and a player asked me if after the game he could return to Manchester without the team and go on his own,” Mourinho said in reference to the Pogba at Burnley incident which was leaked to the media.
I told him, ‘If we went to London and you wanted to stay there, that would be one thing. But this is close, it doesn’t make sense’.
The guy was upset. But then we won the game and he asked me again. Because I was happy, I gave in a little and said, ‘At least leave on the bus and ask your chauffeur to catch up with you 10 minutes from the stadium, then go as you wish’.
And this guy in the locker-room still wasn’t happy. I went to the press conference and when I arrived at the team bus, parked beside it was a Rolls-Royce with his chauffeur.
The 56-year-old jokingly referred to Pogba as "his Excellency" during the course of the discussion. He suggested he would be sent "on vacation" if he handled it in an unpreferable manner.
"After all, the car was new and His Excellency would like to leave the stadium in his Rolls-Royce. Now how do we deal with this? You [tell him] never go in the Rolls? You can go when I’m happy? Or you solve this thing in another way to get me ‘on vacation’.”
Pogba's future at the club is also uncertain after the French midfielder was linked with a move to Real Madrid this summer. While on international duty, he claimed it would be "a dream" to play for Real Madrid.
