Paulo Dybala’s bond with Roma has often been measured in goals, nights at the Olimpico and the noise that follows him through the city. This week, during the break from league football, it was expressed more quietly at Trigoria: in a meeting with the artist behind a mural that had already caught the Argentine’s attention.
Dybala met Lorenzo Verrecchia, the Roman street artist known as Drugi, shortly before lunch and the squad’s return to training. It was their first meeting, although the pair had already connected through an image of Roma support painted on a wall in Garbatella.
Quick facts
- Paulo Dybala met Roma artist Drugi, whose real name is Lorenzo Verrecchia, at Trigoria.
- The meeting took place at 12:30 during the international break, before training resumed.
- Dybala had seen Drugi’s Garbatella mural online and asked to meet him.
- Drugi gave the Roma forward a framed canvas version of the artwork.
- Dybala plans to display the piece in the gym at his home in Infernetto.
The mural shows a child sitting cross-legged, absorbed by a small figurine held tightly in his hands. The figure is a Roma-themed superhero: yellow and red cape, No. 21 shirt and a raised fist, an unmistakable tribute to Dybala.
For the artist, the work turns a child’s imagination into a picture of devotion. For Dybala, it was enough to prompt a simple request: he wanted to thank the man who had created it.
They met in the room normally used for a new signing’s first club interview. On this occasion, two chairs stood before the ochre-coloured backdrop for a different kind of introduction, bringing together a player and an artist linked by the same Roman attachment.
Drugi arrived wearing a shirt carrying the phrase that has become his personal statement: “I paint Rome because loving it is not enough.” He was visibly moved by the encounter, while Dybala worked to make the occasion less formal.
The Argentine came in wearing Roma training gear and kept his phone in his pocket throughout the meeting. At Trigoria, he is known for an unforced routine: drinking mate from a container decorated with the faces of his wife Oriana, daughter Gia and dogs Kaia and Bowen, and speaking easily with staff across the club.
That familiarity mattered in a meeting that could easily have overwhelmed a supporter meeting a World Cup winner for the first time. Dybala received Drugi with warmth, treating the exchange less as an appointment with a fan than a conversation with someone who had given shape to a shared feeling.
A gift for home
Drugi’s surprise was a printed canvas of the mural, set in a handcrafted holm-oak frame. The gift again moved Dybala, who thanked the artist several times after first being struck by the Garbatella wall and then by the work prepared for him.
The forward has chosen its destination already: the gym in his villa at Infernetto. He corrected that description in spirit, however. It is his home in Infernetto, a distinction that reflects the place Roma has taken in his life.
Roma supporters have made their affection for Dybala visible in the grand settings of matchday, but also in smaller gestures across the capital. The encounter with Drugi offered another example of that relationship: a supporter’s art meeting a footballer who increasingly belongs to the city he represents.
