{"id":52746,"date":"2019-02-18T09:04:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T09:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=52746"},"modified":"2019-02-18T09:04:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T09:04:22","slug":"paulo-dybala-the-argentine-gladiator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=52746","title":{"rendered":"Paulo Dybala: the Argentine ‘Gladiator’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sports desk: On the surface, Laguna Larga looks no different from any other small town in Argentina.<\/p>\n

It has an agricultural heart, the main square, two petrol stations, a school, a museum, and two football clubs.<\/p>\n

But it is probably the only place in the country where Lionel Messi comes second.<\/p>\n

“This is Paulo Dybala's town,” reads a giant billboard on Ruta Nueve, the road that connects Argentina's three main cities – Cordoba, Rosario, and Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n

It was a special birthday gift to the 25-year-old Juventus forward two years ago and symbolizes the borders of his kingdom.<\/p>\n

Here, no-one would ever use his surname. Only outsiders say, Dybala. To Laguna Larga's 7,500 inhabitants, he is Paulo.<\/p>\n

This is where he grew up, the youngest of three brothers, in a town otherwise best known for a failed bank robbery that involved 20 hostages, in which gunmen seized the police station and disguised themselves as officers before things went badly wrong.<\/p>\n

It is a town split in two by the main road running through it, with a football club on either side, Sportivo and Newell's.<\/p>\n

Dybala had a parent from both halves of the divide; his mother's family supported Sportivo, while his father, Adolfo, and grandfather, Boleslaw, were Newell's fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sports desk: On the surface, Laguna Larga looks no different from any other small town in Argentina. It has an agricultural heart, the main square, two petrol stations, a school, a museum, and two football clubs. But it is probably the only place in the country where Lionel Messi comes second. “This is Paulo Dybala’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":52747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n