The Juventus And Paulo Dybala Cold War Continues, But Is He Worth Keeping?

Paulo Dybala’s eyes conveyed all they needed to.

The Argentine had just given Juventus the lead against Udinese in the Saturday evening kick off following a well-worked move involving Arthur Melo and Moise Kean.

The two of them combined to slip Dybala in, and the 28-year-old made no mistake, lifting the ball high into the roof of the goal, and celebrating his seventh Serie A goal of the season.

But the word ‘celebrating’ might be a touch optimistic in this case. Instead of Dybala performing his usual Gladiator tribute act, he tilted his head in the direction of the Juve hierarchy, always seated in the Tribuna Ovest, and gave a steely, stern look.

Indeed, the look said it all. Dybala didn’t so much as crack a smile at breaking the deadlock.

It was clear, he isn’t happy at the talk surrounding his supposed contract extension.

It’s been reported by all of the various media outlets in Italy that Juve, in light of his latest injury set back, reneged on the terms of their agreed (only verbally, and not written) contract proposal.

The agreement was made in October, and supposedly was set to see Dybala earn an estimated €10m ($11.4m)-per-season for the next five years. This amount is net, so Juve would be out around €100m ($114m) for the duration of a new five-year deal.

And then Dybala suffered yet another injury, this time in the opening stages of a league game against Venezia. It was his sixth injury since the beginning of last season, and for Juve, one too many.

Since the start of 2020-21, Dybala has missed 30 games through injury, and the regularity with which his fragile body is now picking up injuries, many of them muscular, has got the club second-guessing whether it’s wise to invest a massive amount of money in a player who can’t make it through a season unscathed.

This is especially so given the current state of the club’s finances. Juve posted financial losses of over €200m ($228m) for 2020-21, and while some of that burden will have eased with the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo and his massive salary off the books, the club still need to thread carefully. The days of handing out lucrative contracts to the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Adrien Rabiot are over.

Dybala however, doesn’t see it that way.

“I have nothing to prove to anyone,” he remarked following the win against Udinese. Dybala’s statement was no doubt a response to Juve’s sporting director, Maurizio Arrivabene.

Before Juve’s instant classic 4-3 win against Roma, Arrivabene was asked about Dybala’s contract status, saying: “Everyone has to earn their place in the team and has to prove that they’re worth what they decide, no ifs, ands or buts.

“Everyone has to prove their worth, managers, players and coaches. We’ll see in the next few games if they prove it. Let’s look ahead and try to achieve the goals we have set ourselves.”

Dybala, naturally, will feel that his back catalogue since joining Juve in the summer of 2015 ought to be enough to warrant the verbally agreed deal.

But is he really worth keeping at the club, injuries issues aside?

It’s arguable that for a player long touted as world class, Dybala has only really sparkled in one Champions League knockout game in his time at Juve — the 3-0 quarter final first leg win against Barcelona in 2017.

Whilst he’s been a standout performer in many of the biggest games in Serie A, Dybala has often been found wanting in the European equivalent. He never kicked on from that breakout display against Barca – nearly five years ago now ‑ and has underwhelmed in Europe ever since. Only five of his 18 Champions League goals have come in the latter stages.

Moreover, Dybala has proven to be tactically inflexible. Much to their cost, both Maurizio Sarri and Andrea Pirlo realised that Dybala can’t be shoehorned into a 4-3-3 system. His best work for Juve has come in a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-5-2, playing off target men like Mario Mandzukic and Gonzalo Higuain.

The result of this limited Sarri and Pirlo to what kind of formations they could use, and it also led to Dybala being dropped from the starting XI, particularly under Sarri.

And yet by the same token, Dybala does make Juve better. He’s the only player in the squad – Federico Chiesa aside – who can fashion something out of nothing. So if the club were to let him go this summer, replacing him wouldn’t be easy, more so if the club fail to qualify for the Champions League next season, which is a real possibility.

Juventus have never been afraid of making tough decisions. This is a club, after all, who sold Roberto Baggio to Milan in 1995; who then discarded Gianluca Vialli and Fabrizio Ravanelli a year later – weeks after the pair played an integral role in winning the Champions League – and offloaded a soon-to-be-at-his-peak Christian Vieri the summer after that. They sold Zinedine Zidane in 2001 and let the club’s all-time greatest player Alessandro Del Piero leave in 2012 after refusing to give into sentiment and offer him a new deal.

This is a club that doesn’t swim in the sea of sentimentality: business is always business.

And on that front, Dybala’s recent past simply doesn’t warrant a contract of that magnitude. And should he not adjust his demands, then Juve should let him go.

Given their history, it really wouldn’t be a surprise if they did.