Paul Pogba is a footballer again after 26 months out, a ban and a kidnap case | Luke Entwistle

How much can you learn from Paul Pogba’s nine-minute cameo? Perhaps just that he does indeed exist and not only in columns, fitness updates and social media posts. That is where he has existed for the past 26 months, since his final game for Juventus in September 2023: equally at the centre of our gaze and absent from it.

Between his four-year doping ban, reduced to 18 months on appeal, his release from Juventus, and the extortion and kidnapping case that led to his brother being sentenced to three years in prison, his name has been constantly uttered but his face has been rarely seen – at least not on a football pitch.

His appearance at Roazhon Park on Saturday night was primarily an act of demythification, a moment when he escaped the realm of the collective imagination to become mortal once more. It was also a moment when the angel beat the devil. “In my head, there was sometimes an angel that said: ‘You’ll come back,’ and a demon that said: ‘It’s over,’ but my wife pushed me and I stayed focused. I wanted my kids to see me on the pitch,” said Pogba in July, upon signing a two-year deal at Monaco.

But his arrival at Monaco was not an endpoint in itself. He wanted to make his Monaco and Ligue 1 debut against his formative club, Le Havre, on the first day of the season, but the club’s CEO, Thiago Scuro, provided a dose of realism. The Brazilian suggested he would need a three-month programme before returning to full fitness. And so the idea of Pogba was once again confined to the digital realm: bottled up in press conference responses, clicky updates and an incessant barrage of photos and videos from training – a reminder that he still exists, as if we could ever forget.

He was expected to return six weeks ago in a match against Angers before a minor quadriceps injury put paid to those plans, and then again against Paris FC at the start of this month, only for an ankle sprain to delay his return once again. “We are all a little disappointed – he was ready and wanted to play,” said Monaco manager Sébastien Pocognoli at the time.

The minor setbacks only amplified the noise before this weekend. Pocognoli had already spent the week fielding Pogba-related questions before Friday’s press conference and it did not buck the trend. After the first six minutes were spent on the topic, Pocognoli reminded the journalists that there were, in fact, other players in his squad, other subjects, a football match even, lest we forget.

But the match was a subplot: Pogba’s entrance in the 85th minute of Monaco’s 4-1 defeat by Rennes – their third in a row in Ligue 1 – ensured as much. All 18 of Pogba’s touches elicited microscopic inspection because, naturally, there are doubts about his ability to be the player of old. “The Paul from Manchester United, or from his first stint at Juventus, was a few years ago now. We have to judge him on what he is now, with his baggage but also his age,” said Pocognoli last month. He added that Pogba “had not lost his footballing abilities” or his “vista” and he could still “bring Monaco a lot, if his body allows”.

Nine minutes on a football pitch do not answer those important questions, even if it was immediately apparent that he has not lost that swashbuckling elegance with which he glides across the pitch. His unerring confidence is clearly intact too. “There is a good God. I believe in myself and my qualities,” said Pogba after the match.

Pocognoli spoke of Pogba’s return “bringing momentum” to his team. It is sorely needed. When Pogba signed in the summer, he joined a club that had just finished on the Ligue 1 podium for the second successive season, a team that played attractive football and secured results under Adi Hütter. None of these things is now true. Monaco have dropped to eighth in the table so expectations on Pogba have increased.

He represents something of a saviour figure for Monaco, just as he did when he joined Manchester United for a then-world record fee of €110m. Players often insist their fees do not matter and that is true of Pogba, whose arrival as a free agent at Monaco does not mean that expectations are lessened. Denis Zakaria and Lamine Camara should be the players who alleviate the reliance on Pogba, but the former is now suspended following a red card in the defeat by Rennes and the latter has only just returned from a lengthy injury layoff.

Pogba will welcome the responsibility as he attempts to return to the France team before next summer’s World Cup. “I’m very far away from that,” admitted Pogba on Saturday night. Didier Deschamps’s decision to recall veterans N’Golo Kanté and Florian Thauvin for recent camps is a source of optimism, and Pogba has always curried favour with the France manager. Rennes’ Habib Beye said he had “always watched Pogba with sparkling eyes”.

Under the lights of Roazhon Park, it was clear that Pogba has been elevated to something of a deity. Even in his absence, he was omnipresent; Monaco will hope that he is omnipotent too.

Talking points

Marseille, who play Newcastle in the Champions League on Tuesday night, spoiled a party at the weekend. Roberto De Zerbi’s side beat local rivals Nice 5-1, not only keeping pressure on leaders PSG, who comfortably beat Le Havre 3-0, but also dampening the atmosphere at the Allianz Riviera, where the home fans’ ultras celebrated their 40th anniversary with impressive pyrotechnic and firework displays. But the Nice players could not channel that energy. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mason Greenwood (twice), Timothy Weah and Igor Paixao scored for Marseille in what Nice midfielder Sofiane Diop called a “spanking”. While Franck Haise was left bemoaning Nice’s “insufficiency,” as they slumped to a fourth successive defeat in all competitions, De Zerbi spoke of a “moral boost” before his team’s must-win game in the Champions League.

Strasbourg, in contrast, will try to forget about this weekend’s action quickly as they prepare to host Crystal Palace in the Conference League on Thursday. They lost 1-0 at high-flying Lens, who sit just two points behind PSG. Liam Rosenior started strikers Emanuel Emegha and Joaquín Panichelli together but they created very little of note. Rosenior faces a tricky dilemma. Both players made their international debuts during the recent international break (Emegha for the Netherlands, Panichelli for Argentina) and both seem undroppable – Emegha has been key to Strasbourg’s recent success and Panichelli went into this weekend as Ligue 1’s top scorer. Their partnership didn’t bear fruit, which gives the manager a difficult decision.