It’s thankfully been a quiet international break for Juventus thus far, with very little in the way of news actually happening despite having a good number of players out on national team duty. But what we did just after the midway point of the first international window of the 2026-27 season was an interview with the man in charge of the sporting area at Juventus.
And considering the timing as we sit here exactly a month after the summer transfer window closed, you better believe what one of the main
topics of conversation was in one of Giovanni Carnevali’s first interiews since the busy final month of the mercato came to an end.
Plus, since we’re now a month removed from Deadline Day, we’ve also been able to see all of his summer signings in action for their first handful of appearances with Juventus.
“I recently arrived at Juventus, and my modus operandi is that of a manager who looks to the future while building on the present. Everyone makes mistakes, so we need to build on the foundations we have. Our goal was to replace as many players as possible. Perhaps we could have done more, but improvements, even in management, come with knowledge. Over time, I’m understanding where we can improve; experience helps me speed up the process.”
(All quotes via TuttoJuve)
Of course, to be able to try and build the type of squad he wants, Carnevali will need to have money available. Or, in simpler terms, he needs Juventus to get back into the Champions League and have the revenue that comes with it after failing to qualify for Europe’s premier clubs competition with last season’s sixth-place finish.
Carnevali offered another way to describe what things might be like without Champions League football: “a bloodbath.”
“Our priority is to build a team that wins on the pitch, but it’s clear we need to understand how to win on the pitch. It takes a lot of work, we need to lay a solid foundation and not rush things. You can’t always change everything every year. You need to set a goal, choose a path that you can then follow, because only the path will lead to results. Of course, in today’s business of football, the Champions League is crucial to making ends meet; otherwise, it’s a bloodbath. But we can’t settle for just securing a Champions League spot; our goal is to win.”
One of the challenges that Carnevali and his new-look front office that also includes summer hire Frederic Massara is the fact that they are under Financial Fair Play restrictions following their agreement from June that also included a €6 million fine.
Juventus weren’t able to sell many of the players they had on the market this summer, with 2025 summer signings Jonathan David and Loïs Openda instead joining new clubs this summer on loan deals.
“We have some limits to meet, but we still need to build a competitive team. We can’t know what will happen today; we’ll see how the transfer market unfolds and what opportunities arise, one way or another. There are some of our players on loan who have the option of being bought out by their current clubs. Perhaps their sale will be enough to secure the resources we need, but we’re not thinking about that now; we’re focused on getting results.”
Despite the lack of money coming in through player sales, Carnevali wasn’t shy when it came to paying big sums of money to try and upgrade the roster — most notably for forwards Randal Kolo Muani and Kerim Alajbegović. The Bosnian teenager, who just turned 19 years old on Sept. 21, arrived in a €35 million deal with Bayer Leverkusen ahead of Juve’s preseason tour of Hong Kong and Australia in early August.
“I think the price the boy arrived for is right. He has enormous potential, and these are the players we need to get. These days, we can’t buy established champions, but we need to focus on players who will become champions and be worth a lot of money. Chelsea had made a better offer than us, and we almost ended up like Inter with Palestra, but fortunately things worked out.”
Due to the recent injury crunch, Juventus only started one Italian, goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, in their last few games prior to the international break. Carnevali made it a point of emphasis to say that he wants to bring in young Italians to develop at Juventus much in the same fashion as he did during his tenure at Sassuolo.
“Are there too few Italians? Vicario isn’t the only one, there are also some injured players … we certainly want to create more Italianness and bring more Italians to Juve, but it’s not easy. The regulations paradoxically favor the acquisition of foreign players, and in general, having strong Italian players isn’t easy. But yes, we want to bring them in and bring in young ones.”
Speaking of Sassuolo …
It is that 3-2 defeat on Sept. 13 that remains Juventus’ lone loss so far this season. It was the kind of performance that exposed a lot of the potential problems that this squad has no matter how many players Carnevali was able to bring in this summer in an attempt to upgrade the squad. Despite all of that, Carnevali has remained a staunch supporter of manager Luciano Spalletti, who has certainly been under a fair bit of heat ever since the loss last month at the Mapei.
“When I think back to the defeat against Sassuolo, I feel like rolling on the floor here. We conceded some unthinkable goals, but Spalletti is a capable coach, he’s a master for the players, and I’ve seen plenty of coaches in the dugout. Someone like him is what we really need. He has his character, like we all do, that’s normal, but if I could, I’d show you his work. He’s someone with big ambitions, he wants to win. Conte? He’s a friend and a top coach, but he’s never been on our minds.”
In recent weeks, rumors of Juve legend Alessandro Del Piero returning to the club to be appointed as its new president have come back into the rumor mill. However, Carnevali quickly denied those rumors and potentially put an end to the Del Piero reunion talks no matter what else is floated out there ahead of next month’s big shareholders meeting in Turin.
“Del Piero as President? I understand the difference between being a club like Juve: a name comes out and everyone follows it. I know what I have to do, and no one has told me anything: there’s no truth to it.“
