Paul Labile Pogba was born in Lagny-sur-Marne, France, to Guinean parents Fassou Antoine (Dad) and Yeo Moriba (Mum) who migrated from Africa to France to better their lives. His Guinean father and Congolese mother were two love-birds who got their plan for permanent stay carefully crafted. They were among those who migrated to France during the African refugee crisis of early 1990s.
In his small apartment on the outskirts of Roissy-en-Brie, a town in the eastern sprawl of Paris, Fassou Antoine Pogba is looking down at Wednesday’s Telegraph Sport front page featuring his son Paul, and contemplating life as the father of the most expensive footballer in the world. He taps a finger on the cover picture of his son, chin back staring down the camera, £89 million-worth of skill, power and strength in that famous red jersey and makes an observation. “If the club didn’t think he was worth all that money,” Fassou says, “they would never have paid it.”
Fassou came to Paris from Guinea, his country of origin, at the age of 30. He worked in telecommunications and is retired now. He is not as mobile as he once was but he hopes to get to Manchester to see Paul play for the club to which he has returned. Fassou played football himself in Guinea and then when he came to Paris, although there were fewer opportunities then.
“While I was trying to bring these boys on, Paul was getting better and playing with boys much older than him, including his two brothers. At Residence la Renardiere [the estate the Pogba family lived on originally] every kid plays football all day so he always had a game to play in. Even then, as such a young child, he knew he wanted to be a professional footballer.”
For a small boy in Renardiere, there is only one place in Roissy-en-Brie to go for organised 11-a-side football. From the top of the 16-storey tower-blocks of Renardiere you can see the small stand and pitch of the Stade Paul Bessuard, which is home to US Roissy, the little football club where dreams come true. Past the athletics club office at the Stade Paul Bessuard and down the path to a door that says “Bureau Football”, you will find Nicolas Moressee, 40, treasurer of US Roissy and coach of the Under-17s team. He is a friendly man who wears a Manchester United shirt that coincides with Paul’s first spell at the club.
At the centre of the wall is one of Paul’s Juventus shirts, signed with the message, “For my first dream club … Roissy-en-Brie” “Paul comes back to visit a lot,” Moressee says. “He was here on Sunday”. Sunday? One day before he flew to Manchester for his medical? “Yes”. What was he doing? “What he always does, playing football with his mates.”
As treasurer, Moressee is waiting to hear the good news from the French football federation (FFF) about the training payment Roissy will receive for Pogba’s transfer to United. Under Fifa regulations, any club who develop a player at 12 or above are entitled to 0.25 per cent of his transfer fees, for each year they coach him. Paul was at Roissy from six to 13 and the club estimate they could be due as much as €400,000 for their one year. Given that their annual budget for the 30 teams that they run is €60,000, this is enormous. Roissy will be able to buy a new minibus, kits, washing machines and subsidise trips to play away games – crucial given that few of their players have parents who are able to drive the boys to matches. The future of this marvellous little club is secure. If Ed Woodward ever shows up in Roissy-en-Brie, he will not need to pay for his own drinks.
Nabil Aloulou, 23, was the centre-back in the US Roissy junior teams Paul played in and now plays for the club’s senior side. He is a sports teacher for children. “Paul wasn’t much different from what he is like now,” he says when he arrives. “He has kept the same character. I am telling you, he was football-mad as a kid and he is the same now. And he is going to prove he is worth all that money. He’s already proved himself at Juventus and with France. He’s not scared of anything.”
The housing estate
There is one more place to go to understand the factors that shaped the development of Pogba, and that is his true home turf: Residence la Renardiere, the housing estate a short walk from Stade Paul Bessuard. It was there in block 13 on Avenue Auguste Renoir that the Pogba brothers grew up with their mother Yeo, a major influence on all her sons’ careers, who now lives, according to locals, in nearby Bussy Saint-Georges.
The classic trope of modern football is that every big star must come from streets that are inevitably mean, and in doing so narrowly escape a life of crime. Renardiere is modest by the standards of middle-class France but there is nothing mean or threatening about it. People are friendly and welcoming, there is a community barbecue taking place and everywhere children of all ages are doing one thing above all. They are playing football. There is plenty of green space and a newly installed hard court for football and basketball that came after the Pogbas left. At the centre of the estate is a huge Paul Pogba mural, painted by three boys who still live there. It is treated like every other wall in Renardiere, in that balls are kicked against it every hour of the day.