Dybala: ‘No Italian feeling’

By Football Italia staff

Paulo Dybala explains why he chose Argentina over Italy, and says his countrymen should appreciate Lionel Messi more.

The Juventus striker was born in Argentina, and has decided to represent the Albiceleste, despite being eligible to play for Italy and Poland.

“I feel 100 per cent Argentinian, though I look foreign with these pale eyes,” Dybala told La Repubblica.

“When I had to choose, I had no doubts

“I didn’t make any calculations. I know that I’d have less competition for Italy or Poland, but I want to play for Argentina and I never asked questions or thought about switching sides.

“I wouldn’t be happy in a national team that didn’t feel like mine, to hear an anthem that isn’t my own, in colours that don’t belong to me.

“My friend Franco Vazquez has an Italian mother. I only have an Italian passport thanks to a great-grandmother who I know nothing about.

“He feels Italian, I don’t.”

Dybala has been compared to Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi, a player he thinks doesn’t receive the adulation he deserves in his homeland.

“I’ll study Messi. Meeting him is the only dream I have that hasn’t come true, because when I was called-up for Argentina he wasn’t there.

“I’ve never spoken to him, I’ve never played against him but I follow everything that he does, and I think I could also learn a lot from him on a human level.

“For us young Argentines, the reference point is him. Unlike Maradona, he hasn’t won the World Cup and people attack him.

“I won’t make comparisons. We had Diego, we have Leo and we complain? We criticise Messi, we’re crazy.

“One day Messi won’t be there. Let’s enjoy him. Let’s enjoy [Sergio] Aguero, [Angel] Di Maria… training with them is a blessing and an emotional thing.

“When I play with Messi, I think I’ll give him the ball even if he has five opponents around him.”

The 22-year-old also discussed the loss of his father, who died after a long battle with cancer when the forward was just 15.

“There was no training session he didn’t accompany me to,” Dybala recalls.

“The disease was long, I knew death was coming months before it arrived. I miss him very much, but his absence has given me strength and maturity.

“I’m very attached to my family, my mother is here in Turin with me, but I knew if I wanted to make a career for myself I couldn’t stay at home, so at 15 I went to stay at a [Instituto] club hostel.

“In Argentina you become a man quickly. I’d envisioned playing with River [Plate] or Boca [Juniors] for two or three years before coming to Europe.

“But then one day [Palermo President Maurizio] Zamparini came in with €12m and I had to go.”

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