Soccer Stars Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku Train at UCLA, Manchester United to Follow

International soccer superstars Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku took their talents Thursday night to UCLA’s Drake Stadium for offseason training, with more players to follow this weekend.

On Thursday, the eyes of the international soccer world were on Westwood, as French midfielder Paul Pogba and Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, two of the global game’s most famous players, took to Drake Stadium on UCLA’s campus to train ahead of Lukaku’s ground-breaking £75 million transfer from English club Everton FC to its fellow Premier League member Manchester United FC, the world’s most famous soccer club.

And they did not go unnoticed, as Bruin athletes who have gotten to know global soccer leagues through EA Sports’s FIFA game series and broadcasts all over cable TV were quick to point out that they were rubbing shoulders with the stars:

https://twitter.com/_WOODSY_J/status/883050958548107264

The pair, long-time friends who are both represented by Dutch agent Mino Raiola, have been vacationing together in Los Angeles, but news broke in the wee hours of Thursday morning that Lukaku, long expected to join English power Chelsea FC, was actually on the verge of becoming a teammate of his BFF Pogba at Manchester United. A frenzy of attention followed as rumors swirled around one of the most coveted strikers in the world:

As a result, the eyes of the world’s sports media immediately turned to LA and, later in the day, to UCLA as the scramble ensued to lock down the details of the biggest breaking sports story in the world.

https://twitter.com/HLNinEngeland/status/883213427526729732

Should that move go through, as looks extremely likely at this point, Lukaku will find himself with Pogba at UCLA plenty of times in the next couple weeks as Manchester United as a whole is set to join Lukaku and Pogba in Los Angeles on Sunday, bringing its entire first-team squad out to UCLA for preseason training in advance of preseason games that will be played across the United States against teams like the LA Galaxy, Manchester City, Real Madrid, and Barcelona.

United manager Jose Mourinho’s fondness for UCLA is well-known, as he previously brought over Chelsea, Inter Milan, and Real Madrid squads he has managed in the past to UCLA for preseason training, so it seemed a fait accompli once he was hired at Manchester United that he would eventually do the same with the Red Devils.

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UCLA should be getting quite a lot of global exposure these next few weeks as the world’s most popular sports team drops anchor in Westwood. That exposure started a little bit earlier than expected though, when UCLA unwittingly became the epicenter of the soccer’s biggest story of the summer.