After Roma’s loss to Real Betis yesterday, Paulo Dybala referenced his relationship with Jose Mourinho, suggesting that it was better than the one he had at Juventus with Massimiliano Allegri.
The Argentinian forward and the Italian coach often didn’t see eye to eye during their time together at Juventus and despite Dybala’s comments that he did get on well with Allegri, it’s clear that the pair clashed on multiple occasions, often relating to how things went on the pitch.
Dybala and Allegri’s most recent argument came in March of this year, after Juventus were knocked out of the Champions League by Villarreal. La Gazzetta dello Sport detailed how Dybala and then-teammate Juan Cuadrado went to Allegri to request a slight change of plans ahead of their match against Salernitana, asking for some alterations to their pre-match training schedule.
The pair reportedly asked for a few more hours free time for the squad and a slight change to the training times, something Allegri was unimpressed with. The conversation between Dybala and the Juventus coach devolved into a heated debate and at one point the Italian said: “You, Paulo, are making such a request to me?”
Allegri discussed the quarrel in a press conference, attempting to downplay the situation.
“They made a request and I said no,” he said. “Nothing happened, they understood and they were good. After this morning’s training session we’re staying in the camp because tomorrow is a delicate game and we’re all together, we’re resting and we’re calm.
“No discussion. I’ve been a player too, every now and then we need a bit of a fuss otherwise we stay flat. The other night I thought we were too flat. After Villarreal we needed a pretext to make a bit of a ‘mess’, that’s fine.”
Dybala did start that match against Salernitana, a 2-0 win, but was taken off in the 58th minute in place of Alvaro Morata.
The Argentinian forward commented on the differences between Mourinho and Allegri after yesterday’s defeat, and after giving his answer he tried to snuff out any possible drama.
“I want to be clear, it is not controversy, we just had different ideas of how to approach the game, we didn’t argue every day!
“Allegri was one of the coaches who gave me the most in helping me grow over the years at Juventus. I know that on social media some will stir up controversy, but I definitely don’t mean it like that!”