Dybala Shines in Roma's Pre-Season Opener

Roma’s pre-season opened with a routine scoreline and a far more important sight: Paulo Dybala gliding across the pitch as if the summer break had never happened.

Gian Piero Gasperini’s side put six past the club’s Primavera team in an intra-squad run-out, but the margin of victory mattered less than the identity of the conductor. Dybala, according to reports from TuttoMercatoWeb, looked every inch the player who dragged Roma through the final weeks of last season, stitching the game together with those flashes of precision and timing that separate him from the crowd.

He finished with two goals and an assist, but the real headline was his condition. Dybala arrived for pre-season in sharp physical shape, moving with a freedom that has too often been interrupted by muscular setbacks. Gasperini has never hidden his belief: a fit Dybala changes the level of this Roma side. On this evidence, and with the usual caveat about his fitness record, the first signs are exactly what the coach wanted to see.

While Dybala set the tone, he was not alone in offering Gasperini reasons to be optimistic.

Dovbyk back on the goal trail

Artem Dovbyk, whose tendon problem and subsequent surgery stripped him of much of the run-in last season, used the occasion to issue his own reminder. The striker scored twice and might easily have finished with more, attacking the box with the urgency of a man who knows the next few weeks could define his future in the capital.

For Dovbyk, this pre-season is an audition as much as a warm-up. His name has circulated in talk of potential sales, a candidate to generate funds for incoming transfers as Roma push on with their market plans, including their pursuit of Crysencio Summerville. Every goal, every sharp movement, strengthens his argument to stay.

Gasperini will not decide on reputations alone. Dybala’s class is a given; Dovbyk’s status is less secure. But on a summer day when Roma eased to a 6-0 win behind closed doors, both forwards delivered the kind of performance that forces a coach to think twice before changing too much.