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Paulo Dybala and the Problem With Italy

The travails of Dybala, whose contract with Juventus runs out this month, are emblematic of a soccer ecosystem that is often a world apart.

Paulo Dybala, with Leonardo Bonucci, is out of contract and facing shrinking options.Credit...Massimo Pinca/Reuters

Paulo Dybala did not, particularly, look as if he were ready to say goodbye. As the lights at the Allianz Stadium in Turin, his home for the last seven years, flashed and flickered, and Tina Turner’s “The Best” began its crescendo, he started to cry. Not in the sense of a single, elegant tear rolling down the cheek.