Paul Pogba to Manchester United: What if it was a trade, not a transfer?

What if Paul Pogba to Manchester United was a transaction made akin to American sports rules? What if United had to give Juventus players, not money?

With the transfer window closed and the biggest moves of the year now in the rear view, the deals will continue to be dissected down to granular analysis. But what if it wasn’t a transfer, what if it was a trade? In American sports, clubs cannot purchase a player from another team: they have to agree to trade players (or draft picks) to acquire players they want. In that light, we’ll look at the biggest transfers that went down this summer and see how they could be different in this fictional reality. In this inaugural edition, what if Paul Pogba was traded to Manchester United rather than purchased?

The Paul Pogba to Manchester United transfer was the worst kept secret all summer. The move was destined to happened long before it did, like a movie whose trailer gives away the entire premise of the flick. Or at least all the funny parts.

When the move was announced it was met with much less furor than a move of its size should have. The initial shock had been long gone and it’d been analyzed for weeks upon weeks before happening, it surely wasn’t breaking news.

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To look at it a different way, though, what if football was run like American sports? What if they were transfers not trades, and assets couldn’t be bought, just swapped for each other?

A team like Manchester United is well stocked to be able to acquire such a grand star like Pogba. They have enough intriguing squad players and some youth to pull off such a deal. Instead of Juventus reinvesting the money for other players if they chose, or be like smaller clubs and allow the owners to pocket the cash, they’d only be able to scrape players back from United.

Here’s a rational, reasonable trade that could have been completed between United and Juventus in which one star midfielder switched kits.

HULL, ENGLAND – AUGUST 27: Paul Pogba of Manchester United prays for the final whistle during the Premier League match between Hull City and Manchester United at KC Stadium on August 27, 2016 in Hull, England. (Photo by Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images) /

Manchester United receives: Paul Pogba, Kwadwo Asamoah

Juventus receives: Bastian Schweinsteiger, Memphis Depay, Juan Mata, Marcus Rashford

It’s a big haul for Juventus to make it a fair trade. Pogba’s contract wasn’t imminently set to expire thus they could sit at the table entrenched with a stance that they wanted to recoup as many assets as they could.

At 23, Pogba is already one of the best players in the world and will only get better. It’s a blockbuster deal in the truest sense of the phrase.

United fans will be disappointed to acquiesce to the loss of Rashford, but Juventus will have wanted to return a player with some potential. He’s the biggest get of this deal for the Italian champions as he has the most upside.

All of these players would be expendable for United, though. Rashford surely isn’t a player who’ll be starting every game for United and with Henrikh Mkhitaryan being brought to the team this summer, the losses of Depay and Mata would be easier to swallow.

They’d also get back a lesser version of them two in Asamoah to amortize the number of squad players lost and replenish the rotation some.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – AUGUST 19: Juan Mata of Manchester United during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Southampton at Old Trafford on August 19, 2016 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images) /

But for the here and now in Turin, Mata will be the best return from day one. He’ll jump in behind newly acquired Gonzalo Higuain and be the creative force leading the attack from one of the most defensibly stable teams in the world. The Serie A will do wonders for Mata’s aging legs and aesthetic style of play.

Schweinsteiger would be the direct replacement for Pogba, even though they did a brilliant job of that already this offseason with bringing aboard Miralem Pjanić. But in losing a central midfielder in this fictional world, they’d need one back.