Reports: Juventus, Paulo Dybala agree to contract extension through 2021

It’s not just the holiday season in Turin, it’s also contract extension season. In the last two weeks or so, we’ve seen three Juventus players — Leonardo Bonucci, Daniele Rugani and Stefano Sturaro — all extend their contracts with the five-time defending Serie A champions through the end of the 2020-21 season.

The main question after the flurry of extensions was easy: Who’s next?

According to reports out of Italy on Wednesday morning, that Dybala extension has been drawn up, agreed upon and is all of an official announcement away from crossing La Joya’s name of the “Who’s next?” list. Dybala, Juventus’ 23-year-old crown jewel, will reportedly follow the same path as Bonucci, Rugani and Sturaro and sign a contract extension through 2021. At the same time, he will see his annual salary nearly doubled as it goes up to €5 million per season, putting him amongst the highest paid at the club along with Bonucci, Gonzalo Higuain and Miralem Pjanic.

Yep, fantastic, fantastic news.

Dybala himself has been saying for the last few months that he is close to signing a contract extension with Juventus. He has continuously dismissed rumors that have linked him to Real Madrid and Barcelona over the same amount of time, stating that his present and future is in Turin. (And don’t worry, it’s not like he’s going on social media and confusion the crap out of you, either, so there’s that.)

There are only a few ways to describe just how important it is to not only keep Dybala around, but to lock up the centerpiece of your team for as long as possible. He obviously arrived with a lot of hope and expectations based on his big-time transfer fee two summers ago. But he’s gone on to show that the money Juventus handed over to Palermo was more than just a little worth it. The then-Andrea Agnelli era record transfer fee is looking like a steal at this point, and Dybala has emerged as one of the best young talents this game of football has.

So to keep him around, yeah, that’s a good thing. Happy Dybala is the best Dybala.