Your Monday Briefing: Pogba wins the World Cup

POGBA WINS THE WORLD CUP
Paul lifted football’s most famous trophy on Sunday night, after scoring a superb goal in France’s entertaining 4-2 win over Croatia at the Luzhniki Stadium. The victory means he is the fourth United player to win the World Cup as a Red, after Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles and John Connelly in 1966.

“It’s just an unbelievable, magnificent, wonderful dream come true,” Pogba said afterwards. “People criticise and talk bad about us at the start of the World Cup but today we won, and now I want to hear them, because they’re going to celebrate with us, and it’s fine, we invite them to celebrate with us. We like when people do not believe with us and we showed them they have to believe in us.”

EX-REDS WERE ALL IMPRESSED
On the BBC, Rio Ferdinand said: "Pogba was immense, especially in the second half when the pressure was on. He's had a huge price tag on his name and he had a tough season last season, in terms of being called out by the media and people in the game. At the World Cup, he's been responsible, he's stood up to a lot of hard tests and he was one of the talismen of this team.”
 
“I don't mind Pogba dancing now,” joked the iconic Roy Keane while speaking on ITV. “He's entitled to have a dance now he's won the World Cup. He can do whatever the hell he wants with his hair.”

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a former team-mate of Pogba, also used Twitter to praise his world champion friend...

Let them talk but the game speaks for itself @paulpogba #pogcup #myapprentice #congratsfrance pic.twitter.com/CzM0Am7fxj

— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official) July 15, 2018

FELLAINI AND LUKAKU FINISHED THIRD
Belgium secured their bronze medals by beating England 2-0 in Saturday’s third-place play-off in Saint Petersburg, where Thomas Meunier and Eden Hazard both scored. The Red Devils then flew back to Brussels to enjoy a massive homecoming parade, as captured by the lads on Instagram.

FOURTH PLACE FOR ENGLAND REDS
Phil Jones, Ashley Young, Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford all flew back to Birmingham on Sunday, with their heads held high following England’s best World Cup since 1990. Reds legend Gary Neville agrees it was a good tournament.

“Getting to the semi-final is a huge achievement and obviously getting to the right side of the draw helped,” he said on ITV. “The idea of losing three games is irrelevant. The only thing people will remember in 15 to 20 years is getting to the semi-final.”

It’s been an amazing journey with a great group of people, we enjoyed every moment through the ups and downs and there is so much more to come from us all 👊🏾 want to thank everybody that followed us from beginning to end different class 👏🏾 thank you @England 🦁🦁🦁 pic.twitter.com/IHpXWCmUbP

— Jesse Lingard (@JesseLingard) July 15, 2018

Went Lions. Returned Pride. Thank you all involved, a tournament I’ll never forget 🦁🦁🦁 @England pic.twitter.com/my9oSBaDQ5

— Marcus Rashford (@MarcusRashford) July 15, 2018

TOUR 2018 IS UNDERWAY
You may have missed it amidst the hubbub of the World Cup final, but Jose Mourinho and the United players flew to Los Angeles on Sunday night for the start of this summer’s pre-season tour. The Reds’ first match is against Club America at 03:00 BST on Friday, followed by fixtures against San Jose Earthquakes, AC Milan, Liverpool and Real Madrid. MUTV is the only place to watch them live.

LA Bound ✈️🇺🇸 #mufc pic.twitter.com/aYPhN4YIti

— Chris Smalling (@ChrisSmalling) July 15, 2018

THE ACADEMY LADS ARE BACK FROM AUSTRIA
Speaking of tours, our youth players all returned to Manchester on Saturday after a fruitful four-day trip to the Austrian Alps. Ricky Sbragia was pleased with the work-out his Under-23s got in a pre-season friendly against SV Ried, despite losing 2-0. “Listen, they were probably four or five weeks ahead of us in terms of fitness,” he told MUTV. “They were quite strong and a good football team. Physically, they were ahead of us but it was a good exercise.”