Abhay Singh
Paulo Dybala stated that he once informed Cristiano Ronaldo that Lionel Messi was the reason why he was despised in Argentina.
The Argentine acknowledged that as a child, he was also not fond of the Portuguese celebrity.
“It was three good years with Cristiano”
Dybala and Ronaldo played together at Juventus between 2018 and 2021, winning two Serie A titles. He said he got close to Ronaldo after Ronaldo’s move to Juventus.
He claimed to have told the Al-Nassr great the same thing when they were teammates at Juventus, but he didn’t like Ronaldo till then because he supported his countryman Messi.
He said “It was three good years with Cristiano, the team was strong and he gave us something extra. The rivalry between him and [Lionel] Messi is deeply felt in Argentina and as a child, of course, I was always on Messi’s side.”
He also added “One time we were on a plane to go play a game, I was at the back and he was sitting further forward. At one point he came to me to talk about football and other things. We used to discuss our lives in general and so I said to him ‘I basically hated you as a kid’. We had some laughs. We’ve always had a good relationship, a good dialogue.”
Paulo Dybala and Cristiano Ronaldo played 93 matches together, yet they scored only 12 goals. Meanwhile, he has played 18 matches alongside Messi, scoring only one goal together.
There were no off-field issues between Dybala and Cristiano Ronaldo
In 2019, Paulo Dybala’s brother and agent Gustavo confirmed that there were no off-field issues between him and Cristiano Ronaldo, but they struggled to communicate and understand each other during their games.
Gustavo said “There’s no problems with [Ronaldo] off the field, the problems are on it. You cannot beat [Ronaldo] and Paulo is young. There are many possibilities that Paulo leaves Juve, he needs a change. He’s not happy and he’s not the only one who’ll leave. Many players are unhappy at Juventus, not just Paulo.”
Paulo Dybala joined AS Roma after leaving Juventus in 2022, a year after Cristiano Ronaldo left Juventus for Manchester United.
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