Zinedine Zidane has finally admitted that Real Madrid tried to sign Paul Pogba from Juventus in the summer transfer window.
The French midfielder was consistently linked with Los Blancos after Gonzalo Higuain’s £75 million arrival at Juve from Napoli became finalised at the end of July.
Pogba eventually completed a world-record £89m transfer to Manchester United in August, with Zidane refusing to comment retrospectively on Real’s interest – until now.
“He could have come,” he admitted in an interview with former France teammate Cristophe Dugarry on Radio Montecarlo on Thursday evening.
“There were conversations to try and sign him but it didn’t go ahead.”
Pogba’s transfer saga was a mainstay of the summer, with negotiations in the biggest transfer of all time understandably taking a long time to iron out.
The 23-year-old signed eventually agreed a five-year contract with his former club on August 8 to become United’s fourth summer signing after Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eric Bailly and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
By contrast, Zidane oversaw the arrival of just one player in the window, with Alvaro Morata reunited with his former teammates after himself leaving Turin.
Real will have to continued their abstinence in the transfer market, having been banned by Fifa from registering new players until 2018.
The club are appealing against the ban, which was enforced due to the illegal signing of underage players, but even if they win Zidane will surely be forced to work with what he’s got for the time-being.
Real have made an unbeaten start to the season, but having won their opening five games in all competitions, they have stalled somewhat of late, drawing their last four.
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