Reports: A Paulo Dybala-Mauro Icardi swap deal might still be a thing

When Beppe Marotta took over as the man who was tasked with sculpting Inter’s new roster, there was always going to be links between the former Juventus director general going after players who he brought to Turin. Now that Marotta has brought in Antonio Conte to be Inter’s new manager, the rumors connecting Juventus and their bitter rivals in black and blue are almost certainly going to be even more plentiful.

There is no other case where that will be confirmed than the long-standing rumor where Juventus and Inter swap Argentinian strikers, with Paulo Dybala and Mauro Icardi swapping sides of the heated rivalry at some point of the summer months.

After a few weeks of not hearing about it, it’s something that La Gazzetta dello Sport and Sky Sport Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio have floated out there in recent days.

Here is what Di Marzio had to say about a potential Dybala-Icardi swap on Saturday:

Despite being a complicated negotiation, the Icardi-Dybala swap deal between Inter and Juventus is still on the table, with the Nerazzurri’s CEO Marotta keen on making it happen. No agreement between the two clubs has been reached yet, but the negotiations are everything as the parties are trying to find a way to set up a deal.

La Gazzetta also doubles down on their reporting and goes as far to speculate about the future of Juventus’ other strikers just in case Icardi does arrive. (Hint: Cristiano Ronaldo stays, one of Mario Mandzukic or Moise Kean could leave. There you go.)

Besides the fact that Juventus rarely ever involves itself in player exchanges — and this is something I will continue to say despite the Leonardo Bonucci deal last summer — is that both outlets also state how difficult it still would be to do the Dybala-Icardi swap regardless of the recent history of moves.

Icardi’s status at Inter seemed to basically change every couple of days both before and after Marotta arrived last season. One week he was sure to leave, the next he was going to be returning to training ... only to miss training, the week after that he was having his wife/agent Wanda Nara doing all the speaking for him no matter if he wanted to stay or go. It was, basically, a total crapshoot what you going to get from one week to the next — and, for all we know, Conte might be so set on keeping a striker of Icardi’s quality that their former club captain isn’t even on the market.

When it comes to Dybala, the common line of thinking amongst both the Italian media and Juve supporters is that he would be one of the handful of players that could be sold if Fabio Paratici wants to go out and make a big-money move to try and improve Juventus’ squad. And Dybala’s status seems to be a lot like Juve’s managerial situation right now — there might be one thing that we are leaning toward, but we don’t know for sure just what the future may hold this summer.