Report: Juventus wants to extend Paulo Dybala’s contract through 2021

There are many wonderful things to write about Paulo Dybala. He’s the Golden Boy, the baby-faced striker who will drop his wonderful smile on you and then rip out your hearts within a couple of minutes. I, for one, how to write plenty of wonderful things about Dybala over, say, the next 10 years or so. (Rough estimation.)

How do you keep Dybala around for — hopefully — that long of a period of time?

Well, you do what the Gazzetta dello Sport reported Monday. That involves two major things — tacking on another year to Dybala’s current contract, meaning an extension through the 2020-21 season. That also involves a nice little bump up when it comes to Dybala’s salary, which the Gazzetta says will go from his current €3 million a season figure to €4 million.

Oh, and just for a topper, the GDS says that if midfielder Paul Pogba heads back to Manchester United for a boat load of money — which, at this point, who the hell knows what is going on with that because of all the blah, blah, blah — then Dybala will be extended the chance to take over as the guy who wears Juventus’ No. 10 jersey.

That’s a lot to take in when it comes to the last two paragraphs.

When it comes to the contract extension, that only seems like a mere formality. Even with the addition of fellow Argentine Gonzalo Higuain, Dybala is clearly one of the building blocks of this Juventus side. At 22 years old, Dybala is not just a present-day cornerstone, but also one that Juve can build around on a long-term basis. He is on the precipice of stardom after the 2015-16 season he had where he finished behind only Higuain’s insane final season in Naples on the scoring charts. He’s only getting better and the reason that

Whether that’s in his current No. 21 jersey or with a new number, I guess these are merely discussions on "Does he deserve it or not?" kinds of topics. We can dissect that as much as we want if there’s actually a legitimate chance of that happening. (Although, when it comes to if anybody on the current Juventus roster not named Pogba fitting the bill of a No. 10, it’s almost certainly Dybala.)

Let’s just hope that this rumored contract extension is the first of many Dybala contract extensions. And if it just so happens that subsequent contract extensions happen with Dybala wearing the No. 10 jersey, then it’s a sign that Dybala will be wearing said number for a longer amount of time than the last guy who sported it — which can be a good or a bad thing however you wanna look at it.