As the rumors persist that Barcelona could see Lionel Messi walking away from the Spanish club in the summer, a Juventus striker and a fellow Argentine emerged as the top candidate to take the place of the Barca captain. Reported hot on the list of the Catalans is Paulo Dybala.
Dybala made waves in the last campaign as the close partner of Cristiano Ronaldo in Juventus' frontline and the two made for a formidable scoring machine for the Old Lady. The forward started in 37 games for Turin and found the net 17 times.
He is reported to be high on the signing list of Barca boss Ronaldo Koeman and The Sun reported the former Netherlands manager will need to compete with Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur for the goalscorer's signature.
It is believed that Dybala had been demanding a wage hike from the Italian giants and if the request is denied, Koeman can enter the picture and convince the 26-year-old to switch sides.
However, the Barcelona coach must be willing to pay twice the salary that Dybala is getting from the Serie A champions, which the report said is around £260,000 per week.
Koeman though will only make a move on Dybala once the Messi question has been settled by Barcelona. Reports said the two have already met and the discussion centered on the team captain's decision to continue football outside of Barcelona.
If true, then the first big task by the Barca boss is to facilitate the exit of Messi, and the next stop for the Argentine seemed not an issue at all. The 33-year-old remains a hot item in the market and big clubs like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are known to be willing sellers.
PSG boss Thomas Tuchel said his side will be making improvements in the weeks to come and indicated that acquiring the Barcelona superstar is something that will make him happy.
"He [Messi] is very welcome! We lost lots of players for this campaign only ... We need to use the transfer window now to make the squad bigger," Goal reported the German manager as saying.
Tuchel's side lost in the Champions League final match against Bayern Munich on Sunday and the coach is only eager to implement changes that will further strengthen the Parisians, already headlined by Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
The German said it's unthinkable that he would say no to Messi, whom he described as Mr. Barcelona.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo said he is not convinced that Messi is out of Barcelona soon. According to Yahoo Sports, the Portuguese star sees Barca finding solutions on the crisis troubling the club at the moment but selling the club superstar is not one of them.
The Juve star said allowing Messi to leave is not the answer to Barcelona's problems.
