Watching Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba work out together at Manchester United’s USA tour training site at UCLA was a bit reminiscent of the film Rocky III.
Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa had gone from adversaries to allies by that point, and their training together montage has remained etched in the brains of all who have substantial knowledge of the Rocky franchise.
Lukaku and Pogba, very close friends off the pitch who became teammates just three weeks ago, share the same agent in Mino Raiola. It’s well documented how much Pogba was recruiting Lukaku, and when the Belgian striker’s move became official, the Pogba reaction posted on Instagram quickly went viral worldwide.
It’s easy to see why as the world’s most expensive player was ecstatic to see his buddy, and now United’s all time second most expensive player join forces with him.
In an interview with MUTV, the official club site’s video channel, Lukaku shed some light today on the specific methods that Pogba used to recruit him to United. The Frenchman used to deliberately drive him past Old Trafford.
“I spoke with Paul a lot, obviously,” said the 24-year-old scoring sensation. “We spent our holiday together and he said: ‘What do you want to do?’ I told him that I was thinking a lot about signing for United, something was telling me [to do it]. ”
“I live near Manchester so, when I was coming to the city [centre], I would drive past Old Trafford and ask my mates what they thought. Me and Paul, we’d go to the city to have dinner and he’d drive past Old Trafford on purpose!”
Romelu Lukaku also discussed linking up again with Jose Mourinho, his former boss at Chelsea.
“The first thing I noticed when I came to the meeting room on my first day with the team, the manager had a meeting and you just felt something special,” he said. “Loads of the players were saying that this group is quite special; we’re all young, hungry players.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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