MILAN, March 9 — Paul Pogba has been dropped for the first leg of Juventus’ Europa League last-16 tie with Freiburg for "disciplinary reasons”, a club source told AFP today.

France midfielder Pogba has missed almost the entire season with a knee injury and was not in the squad list for the match released by the club today.

The source confirmed to AFP that coach Massimiliano Allegri had left Pogba out after the 29-year-old arrived late to a team meeting yesterday evening.

Last week, Pogba made his first appearance for Juve since returning from Manchester United last summer, as a substitute in a derby victory over Torino, and then featured off the bench in Sunday’s defeat at Roma.

He injured the meniscus in his right knee in July and initially elected to not to go under the knife in a bid to make the World Cup in Qatar.

However, despite later changing his mind, he didn’t recover in time to play for France who lost their crown as world champions in a thrilling final with Argentina. — AFP