They were discussing the sports news on Olympic Breakfast, all cheer, bronze and optimism. Vanquished rugby players were unlucky, not outclassed, and we gazed with pride at a medal table that showed Great Britain closing fast on Thailand.

With the mention of football, however, the mood changed.

Now cynicism ruled. It was asked: how was Paul Pogba worth £89million? No case came for the defence.

Nobody countered that with Premier League revenue measured in billions, fees and wages were relative. Nobody cited examples from the entertainment industry, film star salaries or the contracts given to valued television personalities. It was just left there, this mystery, this waste.

‘A different world,’ a presenter concluded, sagely. And, indeed, it is because this summer Manchester United changed it.

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The Paul Pogba deal sends a message and sets a new standard in the Premier League

In securing at long last Pogba’s signature, they reversed a flow that had run in one direction since Cristiano Ronaldo departed for Real Madrid in 2009.

Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez may be gone, Neymar and Gonzalo Higuain stayed away, but English football no longer loses the best players to Spain. Not all of them, anyway.

This summer, Ed Woodward has delivered on his intention to return Manchester United to Europe’s super elite. In doing so, he has dragged the rest of the Premier League along for the ride.

It does not matter for now whether Pogba is worthy of his fee. He was not expected to be here. United have got English football back in the game. Where Pogba leads, others may follow.

Gareth Bale (left) and Luis Suarez swapped life in the Premier League for La Liga

Plainly, this wasn’t United’s motive. We all know who they care for at Old Trafford, and it isn’t the rest — but undeniably the signing of Pogba is a statement of significance.

United even had to take a large gulp at the thought of recruiting a player who left the club for next to nothing in 2012, having failed to agree a new contract.

He wanted to go and, at the time, the majority agreed with Sir Alex Ferguson’s refusal to entertain his wage demands. So credit to them for swallowing their pride. It would have been easy to make a half-hearted bid, and conveniently miss out.

Players of Pogba’s calibre go to Barcelona or Real Madrid, at a push Bayern Munich. No matter the money on offer, this was supposed to be a battle United could not win. Yet they pushed it all the way.

Pogba returns to Old Trafford after four years in Serie A with Juventus

Pogba, remember, has signed for a Europa League club — for this season, at least. Manchester United’s spending may be designed to ensure they do not finish outside the top four again, but it will be September 2017 at the earliest before Pogba gets his next taste of Champions League football proper and that, alone, was considered enough to sabotage any deal.

Instead, a combination of ambition, ego, unfinished business, financial incentive, Jose Mourinho and the promise that this Manchester United team would be constructed around his presence, convinced Pogba to return to Old Trafford.

Some will argue that a disappointing European Championship helped, too. That had Pogba starred for France this summer as expected, the clamour from Real Madrid’s fans would have made the club push harder for his signature.

Maybe so. Yet, whatever the reason, by getting Pogba, Manchester United have boosted the status of the Premier League.

France reached the final of Euro 2016, but it was not a vintage tournament from Pogba

Executive vice-chairman Woodward will say this was the plan all along. Not the wider benefit, but certainly a desire to protect Manchester United’s brand by delivering marquee signings. The previous interest in the return of Ronaldo or luring Bale from Real Madrid was part of that, too.

United, as the biggest club, are the standard bearers for the Premier League and if they are to remain competitive — and the competition is to stay marketable abroad — Woodward believes stellar signings are every bit as important as winning titles.

The fans love the emergence of young players like Marcus Rashford, but also wish to see the greats of the game wearing red.

After all, if the best players are only in La Liga, why not just watch La Liga? Woodward feels it is United’s duty to resist Spain’s supremacy by signing Pogba, or Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Ed Woodward congratulates Jose Mourinho after United's Community Shield victory

So, it is easy to be cynical, to view the Premier League as a money monster, and the recruitment of Pogba as its worst excess.

But it isn’t; in its own way, the signing alone is success. Costly, but it’s their money. And, by the way, Olympic medals hardly come cheap.

David Moyes still feels slighted over his time as manager of Manchester United. ‘I was unfairly treated,’ he insists. ‘When you sign a six-year contract and finish in 10 months…’

Yet, of all British managers, Moyes is the one with least cause for complaint. He got the chance. He got the break they all hope for.

From Sam Allardyce, through Steve Bruce to Alan Curbishley, many can claim to have performed feats at smaller clubs, without ever being given the opportunity to manage the elite.

Not Moyes. He took charge of a Manchester United team that had won the title, and failed. He can argue he should have been given more time, but at that level, who gets time?

Moyes was given the same opportunity as the leading foreign coaches receive, and has ended up at Sunderland. He caught a break and did not take it. That is no slight; that’s down to him.

David Moyes is still talking about his sacking at Manchester United

Rio Ferdinand would like to be considered for a role in the England set-up, maybe even as Sam Allardyce’s successor. He could start by leaving the studio and getting a job in club football.

It is an insult to those who do risk their reputation in coaching if the FA value pontification above hard graft.

London legacy a real success

Pictures have been released of the ramshackle relics of previous Olympiads.

War has ravaged venues in places such as Sarajevo but what remains of Athens 2004 is particularly dispiriting. Dirty brown water in derelict pools, stadiums crumbling and overgrown with weeds.

By contrast, last Thursday, I joined a crowd of 54,000 on the way to West Ham’s outstanding new home. London’s Olympic Stadium has a committed anchor tenant with a 99-year lease, a future, and as a consequence no chance of similar decay. It’s what you call legacy.

West Ham beat Slovenian side Domzale to progress into the Europa League play-off round

Sham-pions League cost Mancini dear

It used to be that the manager planned pre-season. He took on the opposition he felt was appropriate for the various stages of preparation.

Now it is the chief executive in consultation with the commercial department. Teams make continental tours, face glamorous, quality opposition.

Leicester walked into matches with Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain and conceded eight goals, Arsenal lost Gabriel, one of their few remaining centre halves, playing Manchester City.

And Roberto Mancini became the first coach to be sacked for failing to perform well in the International Champions Cup.

Inter Milan’s successive defeats to Bayern Munich and PSG were ominous but, even so, these games were friendlies, and the tournament a mish-mash.

Yet in this sham Champions League, Inter’s owners saw grounds for dismissal. Mancini was out, replaced by Frank de Boer.

Roberto Mancini's second spell at Inter ended on a sour note after his sacking

Would Mancini, left to his own devices, have taken his side to play superior rivals — PSG and Munich are champions, Inter finished 24 points adrift of Serie A title winners Juventus — in Eugene and Charlotte, before flying to Norway to meet Tottenham on August 5?

The Italian season was not due to begin for another 16 days when that match took place. In terms of readiness, Inter were where Tottenham would have been in the last week of July. Tottenham won 6-1 and 48 hours later Mancini was gone.

To have leaked 13 goals in three games is worrying, but Inter Milan had been elevated out of their class, at a stage in the season when the players were rusty.

Maybe the Suning Holdings Group, who acquired the club in June, were already looking for a reason to oust Mancini. Perhaps Gong Lei, their sporting director — very good career in Tahiti, apparently — has a grander vision.

Maybe the Chinese owners think the matches played in their region by major European clubs really matter; that the International Champions Cup is worth winning and to be taken seriously; or maybe Inter were given a ludicrous schedule, wholly unsuitable opposition, and that has now cost Mancini his job.

If he organised the programme, he is mad; if he didn’t, he was stuffed.

And while we're at it

There has been a lot of talk about England DNA this summer, the possession-based style of football that is supposedly our birthright.

Like most of the big ideas in the English game, the concept is imported — in this case from Pep Guardiola and Barcelona.

So it is interesting to observe Guardiola work, up close, at Manchester City and see what is most important to him — because his philosophy seems a little more straightforward than is made out.

No doubt he will be focusing on possession in training, but before any player reaches this level of enlightenment, Guardiola insists on a basic: be fit. Sugary fruit juices are banned, as are high-fat foods such as pizza.

And each player has a weight he is expected to hit. If he is over, Guardiola blocks access to first-team training. He is more about BMI than DNA.

New Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola's attention to detail is similar to Tony Pulis's

Equally, Manchester City work hardest on winning possession, not keeping it. This is Guardiola’s obsession: not what his team does with the ball but what they do without it. When he talks, there really is little difference between Guardiola and Tony Pulis.

Effort, commitment, passion — all the ideals we believe epitomise the lack of sophistication in English football are what Guardiola wishes to instil.

And, of course, possession football, too. The sight of Willy Caballero attempting to play goalkeeper-sweeper in pre-season matches — and bearing little resemblance to Manuel Neuer, sadly — suggests Guardiola wants his entire XI to use the ball well.

Yet his bedrock philosophy needs no dossier. Get fit, run hard. Without it, possession’s nothing and DNA is less.

Presumably, those who want to see Test matches limited to four days would have been relaxed if England’s third meeting with Pakistan had fizzled out to a stupefying draw. With such a limit it would have been obvious from midway that stalemate would be the conclusion.

Four-day Tests would require artificial governance: a limit on first innings overs, targets for overs bowled that would have to be completed under floodlights if necessary, an increase in early, tactical declarations.

Why not just mind our own business? When it works, the five-day Test match is the most enthralling occasion in sport. This one was a slow burner, but good Tests are: that is their beauty.

Moeen Ali holds on to dismiss Sohail Khan as England won a scintillating Test

Olympic chiefs put scenery above safety

Road race winner Anna van der Breggen had only one thought when she sped past team-mate Annemiek van Vleuten, lying rag-doll like in the gutter on Sunday.

‘I thought she was dead,’ she said. So did many of us. Nobody who saw Van Vleuten’s crash in real time would have held great hope of her survival. Van Vleuten lay still, broken. The good news is, she is now out of intensive care. Concussed and with three spinal fractures, but alive. It is by accident, not design.

Once again, the money won. The Olympic road race was held over a spectacularly photogenic course that looked wonderful on television, breaking waves one minute, jungle canopies the next — but the last to be considered were the athletes.

Annemiek van Vleuten flew over the handlebars and lay motionless in a ditch in scenes that left TV viewers horrified during the Olympic road race in Rio on Sunday

Van Vleuten posted a picture of her scars on Twitter following her horror crash

It cannot be that Vincenzo Nibali, known as one of the greatest descenders in the history of the sport and a former winner of the Tour de France, has suddenly forgotten how to come down a mountain safely. It cannot be that so many falls end in hospital.

Nibali suffered a double fracture of the collarbone coming off when leading the men’s race on Saturday, and has returned to Italy for surgery; Colombia’s Sergio Henao fractured his pelvis at the same corner; Richie Porte of Australia fractured a shoulder, hitting a tree. Porte was scheduled to ride in the time trial. His Olympics is over.

Vincenzo Nibali also suffered a sickening fall on a dangerous course

Cycling is supposed to be gruelling, exacting, technically demanding and, yes, there will always be danger when riding at speeds, even rare fatalities. It does not follow, however, that all mistakes on the road lead to casualty.

That does not happen in motor-racing, nor in eventing. It is possible to fall off a horse and get up with little more than a bruised ego. Grand Prix drivers endure the most spectacular collisions and emerge with a reassuring wave.

Yet cycling’s governing body, the UCI, sanctioned a course in which errors were physically calamitous.