Pogba unfazed by price tag, brother says ahead of showdown
REUTERS - Paul Pogba has no concerns over the huge transfer fee paid for his move to Manchester United but he does get angry when he loses, according to his brother Florentin, who will face his younger sibling in the Europa League this week.
The French midfielder returned to United from Juventus for a world record fee of 89 million pounds ($111.63 million) in August and Florentin believes the hype surrounding the transfer does not concern his brother in the slightest.
"In terms of being the world's most expensive player, I think he has put that to one side because it's more an issue for the media -- he is not letting it bother him," St Etienne defender Florentin told reporters.
"Even though everything he does gets three or four times more attention, good or bad. He can handle all of that because of the mental strength he has had since his youth. He is quite irritable though, he doesn't like to lose.
"His head starts buzzing when he loses. I learned to lose and I would say that you're not losing but learning. But for him, when he loses, he goes mad... He can win all the trophies in the world, but he'll still be my little brother."
The brothers will need to put family ties aside when they face each other for the first time as professionals when United visit the French side in the first leg of their round-of-32 Europa League clash on Thursday.
"These two games will be emotional and I hope we'll take something positive from them," Florentin added. "Even if United are a great club, anything is possible in football. The fact they're better than us on paper doesn't matter."
($1 = 0.7973 pounds)
(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru)