This is the bed that Juventus have made for themselves, and now they have to lay in it.
The result is a 2026-27 season that will involve Thursday night football in the fall and into the winter, and who knows just how many roster implications that are still to come over the next couple of months.
On a night that started with a kickoff time delayed by over an hour due to fan clashes outside the stadium and then security worries inside of the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino, it almost felt like a perfect
encapsulation of the previous hours before that the second half of the season-ending Derby Della Mole had absolutely no stakes attached to it other than pride. With Roma and Como both winning and finishing at a time of night that things usually would for the late Sunday fixture rather than close to midnight, Juventus’ Champions League hopes were officially dashed. The Opta supercomputer officially read 0.0% for Luciano Spalletti and Co., with Juventus now bound for the Europa League and a fifth-place finish.
The Derby della Mole ended with a 2-2 draw thanks to Juventus throwing away a 2-0 lead after a Dusan Vlahovic brace in what could be his final game at the club. But it was the overall theme of the night — and especially the final verdict that was handed out as the Bianconeri were in the locker room at halftime — that will be the only real thing folks will be talking about in the days to come.
Juventus got plenty of help over the past six weeks to see themselves actually jump into the top four and then stay there heading into last weekend’s home finale against Fiorentina. But, because they couldn’t beat a Viola side that had nothing to play for other than their general hatred of Juventus and had looked like they were on the beach for weeks, they entered the final weekend of the season needing even more help than that.
They needed a miracle.
And even then that didn’t feel possible.
Not when they up 1-0 and the results might be looking somewhat favorable. Certainly not after Roma were able to hold on. And certainly not after Como put the hammer down and pulled away from now-relegated Cremonese.
With the draw thanks to Torino’s second-half comeback, Juventus finished sixth place and behind a Max Allegri-coached Milan side that completely fell apart in the final three months of the season.
Not even that proved to be something that helped Juventus.
So, in the end, Juventus finished in the same place that they were when Spalletti arrived — sixth place.
Finishing on 69 points isn’t nice. Nowhere close to it. Making #nice jokes about it feels completely idiotic considering the complete apathy about this current roster I feel after 38 rounds of Serie A action. They got here because they couldn’t beat provincial sides that had little to play for or had already been relegated. They couldn’t beat Como in either matchup this season in what proved to be a vital head-to-head matchup that dropped them into the Europa League spots.
There’s so many reasons why this team find themselves with a sixth-place finish. They were in sixth when Spalletti arrived, and they’re sixth when this season ends. Ultimately, the problems with this squad go well beyond the coach, and who really knows just how many of those issues can actually be fixed in a summer where you know you won’t have Champions League income hitting your bank accounts come the fall and winter months.
The fact is, though, this team doesn’t deserve to be in the Champions League next season. What about them says “Yeah, they do deserve it!” and that their current version puts them as one of the four best teams in Serie A? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
This is the first time since the season before Antonio Conte arrived and the Scudetto streak got going that they didn’t qualify for the Champions League on the field. It feels pretty appropriate that this team couldn’t because, ultimately, they aren’t very good — at all. They can’t beat teams they should beat, they had a terrible month of February on top of the terrible start to the season under Igor Tudor, and then they completely flubbed away their chance to control their own destiny heading into Matchday 38.
You don’t deserve Champions League football with the season Juventus just had.
So it makes perfect sense that this team will be playing European fixtures on Thursdays rather than Tuesday or Wednesday next season.
After all the bad things that have happened this season, in a weird kind of way it felt rater appropriate that the final 45 minutes didn’t even mean anything other than playing for pride and beating your city rivals. They couldn’t even do that. Instead, we saw a Torino team absolutely fired up to put one more stake through the heart of their big brother in black and white even when the dead horse had already reached its final breath.
So good riddance to the 2025-26 season, you idiotic pile of crap. I will not miss you one single bit.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- One last goal conceded on the first shot on target by the opposition. Just perfection.
- How perfect was it to see all of the commotion of the days approaching Matchday 37 about half the schedule playing at the same time only for it to be thrown out the window on the final night of the season. Yes, completely different timetables, but good to see that this league has absolutely no true leadership — again.
- I’m going to respectfully choose not to comment on everything that happened before the game when it comes to outside of the stadium happenings simply because there’s still a whole lot of contradicting information out there.
- That said, it’s just a sad situation all the way around. What felt like a very good atmosphere inside the stadium just developed into an awkward one.
- Vlahovic scoring his first brace since September in a game that ends up meaning nothing in the standings feels rather appropriate for the season (and Juve career) that he has had.
- If this ends up being Vlahovic’s final game at Juventus, then fine. At this point, this is the striker that he is. He’s no longer a young up-and-coming player like when Juve first shelled out all that money to sign him. He’s scored some good goals, but hasn’t become the striker that we all hoped he would be after making the step up to a club like Juventus that has so much pressure that comes with it. I’m sure Spalletti will want him back, but who knows if they will be able to make it work — especially with no Champions League next season. Just another giant question mark heading into a summer full of them.
- Mattia Perin’s first save of the night was a good one.
- Manuel Locatelli might have a powerful shot, but my lord is that guy completely inaccurate with it. Once again he unleashed a heater from his right foot, and again it didn’t hit the target. Just more of the same.
- Same goes for Juventus’ overall quality in defending corners. So it goes.
- Seeing Damien Comolli standing behind the goal closest to where the traveling fans were located and then seeing those same fans walk out because of everything happened before kickoff might be one of the more fitting images of this season. Just a guy who may well be seeing the fans walk out as he’s looking at his time at Juventus reaching its end.
- Also, the shot of Comolli and Gianluca Ferrero in the box during the final minutes with absolutely no emotion on their faces pretty much sums up how I feel about them, too.
- The only person who was showing some pissed off kind of moments was Giorgio Chiellini because that man knows when Italy is doing a whole lot of stupid crap that will impact the club he loves.
- Spalletti’s subs didn’t change a damn thing. That makes sense considering who he brought on.
- We didn’t get a Carlo Pinsoglio cameo even though the second half meant nothing at all. This is a giant disappointment considering the state of the game and how the result meant nothing.
- Play Pinsoglio for 20 minutes! Where’s the harm in that?
- I don’t really think much of anything is needed to say about this one because, well, it would just be repeating myself over and over again after a completely disappointing and awful season.
- Again, in conclusion: Goodbye to this rotten 2025-26 season. I will not have many good memories of it — especially as time goes on. Who knows how many times I will wear the home kit that came with this season going on the next few months. At least I got it on sale.
