Having seen one of his old players destroy Barcelona in the Champions League and then sign a new contract with Juventus, former Palermo Coach Beppe Sannino says that Paulo Dybala’s ability was obvious when he arrived at the Sicilian club back in 2012.

“When he came we very quickly saw what he could do,” the former Rosanero boss told Tuttosport. “From a technical point of view he was already an alien but he needed time to withstand the physical impacts and above all to understand tactics.

“But his strength has always been within him, arrived in Italy as a clean and healthy guy, he’s smart and determined. He had the patience to wait and grow slowly, and now he’s still that clean and healthy guy who arrived in Palermo in 2012, but he’s grown up to such a degree that he has nothing to envy from anyone in the world.

“When [Maurizio] Zamparini told us of his arrival, he spoke of him like a phenomenon in the same way as Messi or Maradona. A little skepticism on our part was inevitable, he was a boy who had never had an international youth call-up and that he hadn’t even played in the top Argentine league.

“Then as soon as we saw him touch the ball we looked him in the face realising that he was indeed a potential phenomenon. There is no need to recount a particular example but I remember every year in training where maybe he was facing a one-on-three, he emerged with a simplicity that was out of the ordinary.”