Alessandro Del Piero kinda sorta said Paulo Dybala is his heir and my heart is full again

The Italian media hasn’t completely gone into full-on transfer rumor mode with no football being played — which is good because nobody really wants to talk about the possibility of Juventus signing Mauro Icardi with other more important things going on in the world.

But what the Italian press has done is tried to fill the void of no football being played by upping the number of interviews they try and churn out every day and/or week.

One of the more recent Juventus interviews we saw was a certain No. 10, Alessandro Del Piero, talking about another certain No. 10, Paulo Dybala. What proceeded was Juve’s old No. 10 saying a whole lot of wonderful things about Juve’s current No. 10.

Behold, Del Piero talking about Dybala in an interview with Sky Sport Italia earlier this week:

“Dybala has already worn the captain’s armband a few times and if that happened, it’s because at Juventus they consider him to be worthy of it,

“Considering what I know of him personally, his performances on the field and off, I think that Paulo has really matured in recent months. The best show of that was how he dealt with what happened over the summer, his reaction emblematic of how much he has grown.

“We knew he was someone who loves to work and today I feel he has become a complete player.”

(Source: Football Italia)

Oh, Del Piero saying lovely things about Dybala.

My heart.

It needed this.

The feelings are there, and it’s wonderful.

Obviously the recent news surrounding Dybala has been about him being diagnosed with coronavirus, something that has definitely not been an easy path based on what his girlfriend has said in the last week or so. But before the coronavirus shutdown in Italy and across the entire sporting world, Dybala was easily one of Juventus’ best players of the season — which, based on how the club nearly sold him on more than one occasion last summer, has been quite the positive development.

There has been a good amount of chatter since the fall months about Juventus rewarding Dybala for his rebound season with a brand new contract even though he is already one of the club’s highest-paid players behind the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Matthijs de Ligt. With the way that Dybala has played, seeing him receive a new contract would be a signal that the club does have faith in him to continue the form he has shown this season as well as that he is going to continue to be one of the longest-tenured Juventus players on the roster.

And as Del Piero points out, the maturity to basically turn all the transfer drama of the summer — which saw him almost sign with Manchester United and then almost sign with Tottenham — into something of a positive is more than just a little commendable. Maybe a few years ago Dybala lets that kind of roller coaster full of summer transfer happenings where he would have left Turin really impact his play in the weeks and months after. It didn’t. In actuality, it pretty much ended up being the kind of kick-start that Dybala needed.

So, if Del Piero approves of how Dybala has gone about everything over the last eight or nine months, then so should we.

Also: Give me all that Del Piero quotes about Juventus. We need more of it. We just need more of Del Piero in our lives.