Dybala Shines in Roma's Pre-Season Victory

Roma’s pre-season opened with a training-ground rout, but the scoreline mattered far less than the sight of Paulo Dybala gliding through the game as if May had never ended.

Up against the club’s Primavera side, Roma ran out 6-0 winners, and Dybala treated it like his own private showcase. An assist, two goals, and, more importantly, a body that looked sharp rather than fragile: for Gian Piero Gasperini, those were the real numbers that counted.

This was the version of Dybala who dragged Roma through the closing weeks of last season, the one who stitched together tight games with flashes of rare quality. Reports in Italy described the Argentine as in strikingly good condition, and it showed in the way he moved – light on his feet, decisive in the final third, quick to spot angles others miss.

Gasperini has never hidden his belief. A fit Dybala, he has maintained, changes the level of this team. The caveat has always been the same: “fitness record permitting.” On this early evidence, the forward is intent on rewriting that part of the story.

Dovbyk reminds Roma what he can offer

Dybala wasn’t the only encouraging headline. Artem Dovbyk, back from the tendon problem that required surgery and wiped out much of his run-in, returned with the urgency of a man who knows the stakes.

He scored twice and could easily have finished with more. His movement was aggressive, his finishing instinctive, as if months on the sidelines had only sharpened his appetite. For a player whose name has circulated in discussions about potential sales to fund new signings, these weeks carry a different weight.

Every run, every goal, every training game is a message to Gasperini: there is still a place for him in this project.

Roma’s summer will be shaped in part by the market, with a push for targets such as Crysencio Summerville on the agenda. Performances like Dovbyk’s complicate those calculations in the best possible way, forcing the club to ask whether cashing in on a proven striker is really the smartest route.

Pre-season friendlies rarely tell the whole truth. But on this evidence, Roma’s attack is already speaking loudly – and Gasperini suddenly has more than one forward determined to make himself indispensable.