Jose Mourinho reckons Paul Pogba may never be able to clinch Ballon d’Or

Jose Mourinho reckons Paul Pogba may never be able to clinch Ballon d’Or because he doesn’t match the goal scoring tally of some of the other players in the world.


As per Mourinho, Pogba’s primary job is not to shake the net, but, to set the play and in doing that, he is an absolute expert. Probably nobody can match him in that department at this point, but, if his goals’ tally is four times lesser than someone else, he can’t win himself the Golden ball because the general philosophy is that whoever has the maximum no. of goals is better than the rest.

In Mourinho’s words, “Are the goalies ever in contention for it or even the defensive players for that matter? We have had so many legendary defenders in our game, but, how many of them got it? Yes, I can remember it went to Cannavaro on one occasion as he had led his national side to World title back then, but, it’s an exception.”

“Generally, the players who come to everyone’s mind for Ballon d’Or are those who churn out goals and Paul, although he is second to none when it comes to playmaking, is not the one who has 1 or 2 goals to his name every game and unfortunately, that’s the criterion if you have to win the award, goals and more goals.”

When asked about Pogba leaving the Red Devils as a free agent and then coming back at such an expensive rate, Mourinho said, “Look, it happens. If I have to pick an example I would say Nemanja Matic. He had also left Chelsea the similar way, but, when I took charge, I persuaded Chelsea to go for him again and they went and United has done the same which is good.”