The final match at home for Juventus was a wild one, and quite frankly, for myself, a blur. It was full of so many unforgettable moments, and with top four and Champions League secured, the match itself almost felt irrelevant with everything that was going on. On any other day, most of the talk would be how Juventus disgracefully allowed Lazio back into the match they had no business being in. Instead of giving Chiellini a proper send-off with a victory, they could only manage a draw, which saw the opponents come from behind on the road.
Instead of that being the post-match headline, the only thing people seemed to care about was the club doing nothing for Paulo Dybala. Not the fact that again Allegri’s team dropped unnecessary points or the fact that their Captain, one of the greatest ever, a player of the club for 17 years had just retired. Instead what we got was a player standing in the middle of the pitch and having an emotional breakdown, which in my opinion ruined Chiellini’s moment.
Dybala not being able to keep it together at that moment was another sign of him thinking he is bigger than the club. The same club he failed to read the tea leaves when they wanted him gone years ago during Cristiano’s first season with Juventus, as they wanted the swap him with at the time Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku, and would have seen them have one of the greatest duos in all of Europe. Instead, Lukaku signed with Inter and formed a great partnership with Lautaro Martinez which helped Inter finally break Juve’s Scudetto streak.
Dybala, like his loyal fans, isn’t the player he thinks he is. For that reason, he will sign with Juventus’ biggest rival Inter Milan because as I’ve said for many months now, they are the only club in Europe willing to take a chance on players with an extremely lucrative contract. Dybala could have stayed with Juventus if he and his agent didn’t overplay their hand, but why in the world would they think Juventus would be willing to negotiate with a player who has no value on the open market and the club was trying to get rid of anyway?
I’m not a fan of Andrea Agnelli, as I believe his ego has really tampered with his judgment and decision-making lately and was happy to see the Tifosi whistle and boo him when him was showed on the not so big screen at the stadium, but the man was well within his right not to give Dybala a send-off. In fact, Bonucci was out of bounds for winging an unplanned moment to give Dybala some sort of send-off, which again as I said earlier, ruined the moment of a player who is a legend and was with the club for 17 years! When are we ever going to see a player at a club for that long again? The answer is never. Dybala can be a legend in his own mind and in the minds of all his legion of supporters, but to myself and other long-time fans of the club, he’s just another player who has come and gone.
