Inside Paul Pogba's failure to relaunch his career at Monaco as injuries ruin World Cup dream following drugs ban

Pogba's journey back to competitive football has been a long and arduous one, and close to two-and-a-half years since his initial suspension, he is yet to really re-establish himself in earnest despite finally making his return with Monaco.

It was September 2023, during his time as a Juventus player, that it was revealed that the Frenchman had tested positive for DHEA - a prohibited hormone which can naturally boost levels of testosterone - and he was provisionally suspended with immediate effect by the Italian authorities.

Five months later, he was hit with a devastating four-year ban by the Italian anti-doping authorities - a decision that left him considering retirement. That was subsequently reduced to 18 months in October 2024 following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), who accepted that the midfielder had taken DHEA unintentionally in a supplement prescribed to him by a doctor in the United States, but still deemed he was "not without fault" due to his carelessness in that situation as a professional sportsman.

With his ban backdated, Pogba was eligible to return to competitive football in March 2025, but a month after the reduction his contract with Juve was mutually terminated, leaving him to fend for himself. It was not until June 2025 - almost two years after he was suspended - that his future was clarified, as he signed for Monaco back in his homeland.

However, anyone hoping to see one of the most naturally gifted midfielders of his generation make a swift return to action at the principality club would be sorely disappointed. Pogba's comeback has been anything but smooth, and it would still be remiss to say that he is now back for the long term.

Despite training individually during his time out of the game, the 32-year-old was obviously still well short of match fitness and sharpness when he joined up with Monaco in pre-season. It would be October before he was closing in on making his long-awaited debut - more than two years since his last professional appearance - having been handled very cautiously by Monaco.

That caution proved to be justified; his bow was initially delayed for a fortnight by a thigh injury, but an ankle sprain in the days leading up to his highly-anticipated debut pushed his return even further back into November as the Frenchman's luckless run continued. Finally, on November 22, Pogba would emerge from the bench at Rennes' Roazhon Park to play his first football in 26 months in a five-minute cameo.

Another brief appearance would follow in the subsequent big win over Paris Saint-Germain, before he was afforded the last 21 minutes of the defeat to Brest in early December. But that is as good as it's gotten; to date, that remains Pogba's most recent outing, with just half an hour of football under his belt in a Monaco shirt.

That's because, in the club's final training session before facing Marseille in mid-December, Pogba suffered a calf injury. Initially described as 'minor', that has ended up keeping him out Les Monegasques' last seven games, just when he seemed to be on the cusp of re-establishing himself. While the club has publicly insisted that the midfielder will need time to build up his physical resilience, there are signs that patience is running out.

Speaking at the time of the setback, his head coach Sebastien Pocognoli said: "To have come back from where he was and to play again is already spectacular. But right now, I can’t look towards the future. He is working, and we are there to support him. I understand the concern but I can’t worry about that. I manage the team, and Paul is a part of what I want to put in place, as soon as he is ready to help us."

Just seven months since he joined the Ligue 1 club, it feels as though Pogba is once again facing an uncertain future, as Monaco potentially consider cutting their losses on a contract that runs until 2027.

Speaking in a press conference earlier this month, Monaco CEO Thiago Scuro was candid about his and the club's frustration over the situation amid a wider injury crisis, admitting they had expected things to go very differently when Pogba was brought in last summer. "Clearly, the programme for Paul is not working as we expected in the beginning," he said. "We are working hard to find solutions for him. 

"Personally, he is disturbed. The plan is always changing according to the situations that we face. A few small injuries in different parts of the body are bringing challenges to the process. We keep working to try to deliver what we agreed on in the summer when he arrived. This is our commitment."

The situation is not helped by the fact that Monaco are down in mid-table in Ligue 1, 10 points off the Champions League places, and they could very much do with Pogba's quality and experience to help to push them up the standings.

The upshot of all of this is that, barring something of a miracle, Pogba's dream of claiming an unlikely place in Didier Deschamps' France squad for the upcoming 2026 World Cup is in tatters. He said himself in November after his comeback: "If I'm not fit, if I play poorly, if I don't perform at Monaco, then the French national team is out of the question."

With five months to go until the showpiece event gets underway in the United States, Canada and Mexico, sadly that is proving to be the case for the former Manchester United midfielder, who is running out of time to prove his worth.

Speaking to GOAL in December, ex-France international Frank Leboeuf said: "It's going to be hard for Deschamps to say 'okay, I take him [Pogba]'. He maybe wants to take N'Golo Kante already. N'Golo Kante and Paul Pogba... why don't you call [Antoine] Griezmann as well and call [Zinedine] Zidane! It’s going to be hard. I give him a five per cent chance because I want to be nice, but for me it is over."

If Pogba's strife hadn't already put his future in doubt at club level, then Scuro's words will have offered no reassurance as he suggested that undisclosed clauses in the France international's contract could see his time at Stade Louis II cut short this summer.

"There are lots of things in Paul's contract that are much different to what people think," the CEO continued. "I don't think that it is helpful to disclose anything. The relationship is honest. We have to keep running with the plan, even though the plan has become longer.

"You always have two possibilities: one that this works well and he'll be back on the pitch soon, and he'll be able to make an impact, [or] if it doesn't work, for sure, the parties can sit down in the summer and have another discussion about where we go. This isn't the moment to discuss it because we are working on trying to find the solution."

Having tried and so far failed to get his career back on track in the principality, it seems Pogba will be at a crossroads once again in the summer. The Frenchman turns 33 in March, and after losing so much valuable time due to his ban, building his fitness and subsequent niggling injuries, he simply must get his next move right for the sake of his career at the highest level.