Paulo Dybala revealed that he once told former Juventus teammate Cristiano Ronaldo ‘I practically hated you as a kid.’ La Joya was discussing his career on the TV show Dazn Heroes (as quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport) and explained his decision to move to Roma last season, touching on his famous goal celebration, his new teammates, and a conversation he once had with the Portuguese superstar about how :
“The goal celebration? The story of the Dybala Mask was born a little bit here at the Colosseum. When I was a kid I watched a lot of movies about Rome, the city, the gladiators. The movie ‘Gladiator’ I must have seen 20 times more or less. After a difficult time in my career that I had to come out of somehow, I immediately thought of this cheer. People liked it right away, and so I keep doing it.”
“The choice to move to Roma? When Tiago (Pinto, ed.), the director, contacted us and this possibility emerged I was reminded of these things (the films about Rome, the Gladiator mask, etc., ed.) and I couldn’t help thinking about it. I said to myself ‘I have to do something in this city’.”
“Chess? For the brain and for concentration, chess helps a lot. I started playing as a child: first I watched my dad a lot then slowly I started playing with him. With time the games for him became more difficult until, one day, I managed to win.”
“Tammy and CR7? Abraham is a young player but with a lot of experience. He won the Champions League and scored many important goals with Roma last year. Surely we can do much better than we are doing. We are getting to know each other and trying to do the best we can, hopefully in these recent games we can give Roma the goals they need to get to the Champions League.
“With Cristiano there were three good years, the team was very strong and he gave us something extra. In Argentina the rivalry between Messi and Cristiano is very much felt, I was obviously always on Messi’s side as a child. One time we were going to play a game, I was at the back of the plane and he was sitting further forward. At one point in the flight, he came to me and talked about both football and many other things. We were talking in general about our lives, and at one point I said to him ‘I practically hated you as a kid.’ We had a good laugh about that, and between us we always had a good relationship, a good dialogue.”
