As a very talented teenager was shooting up the Juventus ranks and quickly emerging as a key piece to the puzzle in Turin, there was another teenager on the roster who was simply trying to find his footing with the move to Italian football. The first two years in Turin have not been as smooth for Vasilije Adžić as it has been for Kenan Yildiz, but the former has always had the feeling of a player who still needs regular minutes to get the full scope of what he can actually offer once he gets into
his early 20s.
And now he’s going to get that chance.
Albeit, at a club that wears green and black, not black and white.
Juventus announced on Monday that the 20-year-old Adžić is heading out to Sassuolo on a season-long loan deal that also has an option to buy for a €12 million fee next summer. However, that’s not all, folks — Juventus also have a buy-back option worked into the deal for an additional €1.7 million. So this means they either make a nice amount of money that they bought for around €5 million just 2 1/2 years ago, or they will see Adžić take advantage of what is expected to be much more playing time and develop in the same way that another former Juve youngster, Tarik Muharemović, did over the last couple of years before he was sold to Leeds United. (And Juve subsequently made €20 million because of their 50% sell-on clause in the deal.)
If anybody is to know about the Sassuolo environment and thinking a young player could potentially thrive there, it’s Juventus’ CEO Giovanni Carnevalli, who had the same role with the Neroverdi for the past decade before his move to Turin earlier this summer.
Here is the official wording of the deal, courtesy of the Juventus press office:
Turin, 03 August 2026 – Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that an agreement with U.S. Sassuolo for the temporary disposal, until 30 June 2027, of the registration rights of the player Vasilije Adzic has been reached for a consideration of € 0.5 million, payable in a single financial year.
The agreement further envisages:
— the right for Sassuolo to definitively acquire the player’s registration rights for an additional consideration of €12 million, payable in four financial years.
— the right for Juventus to exercise a buy-back right for a consideration of €1.7 million, payable in a single financial year.
Signed from Budućnost in Montenegro in 2024, Adžić ended up playing in just 16 games in Serie A over his two seasons with Juventus’ senior squad. It was last season in which he looked to have a role off the bench early in the year under then-manager Igor Tudor, but only saw his playing time sharply decline after Tudor was fired and Luciano Spalletti came in to try and save Juventus’ season.
Adžić played just 362 minutes across 17 appearances in all competitions last season.
The hope, of course, is that he gets that many minutes in pretty much every minute of the 2026-27 season.
No matter how he ends up doing at Sassuolo, we will always have this moment from a then-19-year-old young man playing in the Derby d’Italia of the 2025-26 season …
I will never figure out how much power he got on that shot without much of a run-up at all. I know the 2025-26 season ended up going to hell, but that is one of the few moments I will always remember about it. It was a great goal from the unlikeliest of sources. And if that ends up being the only goal he ever scores at Juventus, it certainly at a bad one to be able to boast about.
