Fabio Paratici, finally, addresses Paulo Dybala’s status, other transfer activity

Wednesday brought us something that has been somewhat rare this summer. Not the Juventus family game between the senior squad and the club’s primavera side at Villar Perosa. No, there were cameras, there was Juventus Chief Football Officer Fabio Paratici and, surprisingly, he was talking into those camera.

In an interview with Sky Sport Italia, we finally got to hear from Juve’s transfer director, one of the first appearances he has made since rolling out star signing of the summer, Matthijs de Ligt, nearly a month ago. The main topic of conversation, knowing what is surrounding the club every day in the Italian press right now, is the future of a certain No. 10 and the overall transfer activity of the club as a whole.

So what did Paratici have to say about Paulo Dybala? Well, here you go:

“Dybala is like all the others, a great Juventus player. There is interest and there are discussions, we’ll talk about it together.”

(All quotes via Football Italia)

OK, so it’s not much of an update as to what Dybala’s standing at the club may be, but it’s something. It’s no surprise that Paratici says there’s interest in Dybala because there are still leagues with big-money clubs that still have their respective transfer windows open, and at least a couple of them — Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan — have clear-cut interest in the 25-year-old Argentine.

Whether a Dybala deal actually happens remains to be seen, obviously. Juventus’ desire to sell doesn’t exactly seem as prevalent as it once was when the Premier League’s summer transfer window was still open and the club thought it might have deals with Manchester United and then Tottenham. That could be a result of those two deals falling through and the potential landing destinations for Dybala is now just that much smaller — and it’s not like it was a whole host of clubs to begin with.

So maybe Dybala’s will to stay will end up winning out in the end. That would be nice.

Speaking of players who are Argentinian and might as well switch teams this summer...

“Icardi is an Inter player, so we will only talk about those in our squad. We’ve got Gonzalo Higuain, who is a great hitman, while Mandzukic is an excellent forward. Let’s talk about our players.”

If Dybala stays and is used as a false 9 like Maurizio Sarri has thrown out there in recent weeks, then the need for Icardi isn’t a thing anymore. It’s that simple. Even as they’ve been rumored to be in a swap deal together for months now, they’re very much connected to one another in a transfer sense regardless of how their respective deals are actually constructed.

Dybala, however, is far from the only Juventus player to be linked with an exit before the Serie A transfer window comes to a close on Aug. 23. Names like Mario Mandzukic, Daniele Rugani, Blaise Matuidi, Sami Khedira and Gonzalo Higuain have all been mentioned as players who could be offloaded before the transfer window shuts, with Juventus clearly in need of a cash influx and a little lightening of the wage bill over the next week and a half.

“There aren’t any players closer to a sale than others. We are one of the best teams in the world, which means we have many top level players.

“It takes three parties to conclude a transfer, so we’ll slowly reach our conclusions.”

[...]

“As with all transfer sessions, there is a lot of chatter and lately not many actual deals done, but we are calm and confident.

“It’s not that there is an excess of players, but rather a list that neither the coach nor I can do anything about. We can only use 21, and just one ‘local’ homegrown player. Therefore, the players who are not in that list of 22 have to go.”