Here we go again, my friends. A new Serie A season is upon us — and it’s hard to truly figure out my actual thoughts about this current state of Juventus and the excitement that comes along with that.
Maybe it’s a little of the World Cup ending just barely a month ago. Maybe it’s because Juventus are coming off a sixth-place finish and the summer mercato has been an interesting ride for a multitude of reasons. Or maybe it’s just something completely different that my tired brain isn’t truly recognizing
right now. (Which is completely fair, I guess.)
Either way, a new campaign starts on Sunday — one that we all hope goes a little bit better than the last one.
Juventus begin the 2026-27 season away from home, facing one of the three newly promoted sides in the form of Frosinone. The last time Juve rolled into the Stadio Benito Stripe, it was the first time we saw Kenan Yildiz score at the senior level and break out his Alessandro Del Piero-esque goal celebration. It brought us joy and hopes for a young rising talent to lead Juve into the future. But the next season and a half has not exactly resulted in a wonderful future as Juve built around their Starboy of a young No. 10. Instead, Juve enter this new season with rather muted expectations — at least coming from those of us on the outside.
Rather than being the club that fights for league titles and as many trophies as they possibly can, Juve will take the field on Sunday as just another candidate to try and qualify for the Champions League next season. And the unfortunate part in that is it just feels like the truth unless something crazy happens and they catch lightning in a bottle as the season goes on.
For now, though, it’s just about getting off to a winning start. For a team that has not done a ton of winning the last few years, who knows how much one win against a club that was just in Serie B a few months ago will mean. You just hope that it will maybe get a little bit of belief going that they can ultimately be one of those top four teams come the springtime.
Juve have certainly spent a good amount of money this summer even with there being no Champions League football on the schedule right before we head off into the first international break of the season. They’ve spent well over €100 million to try and give manager Luciano Spalletti a more competitive squad to work with — although, as we know, a very large chunk of that money has come from the two attacking players they brought in right before they went on their preseason tour earlier this month.
“There are a lot of new things this season, firstly the players who can create things and find solutions,” Spalletti said during his pre-match press conference. “There’s always an evolution, but you have to be good at adapting to this constant change. We have to think, reason and go into things in greater depth. I always try to keep myself up to date personally, and I’ll try to do that during the season as well, depending on our commitments.”
But facing a club that is playing its first game in Serie A following promotion is always an interesting kind of endeavor — and facing Frosinone is going to be no different. Their stadium is going to be absolutely jacked up because it’s the season opener and they’re back in Serie A, and it comes against Juventus on top of it. You know what they would love more than anything? Taking points off the most successful club that Italy has.
It doesn’t matter if this current iteration of Juve is far off title contention as we enter a new season. Frosinone is a recently promoted club who would love nothing more than to pretty much ensure that Spalletti’s squad basically picks up where it left off last season — and that’s with nothing really all that positive taking place.
Frosinone have been quite active in trying to upgrade their roster for their return to Serie A, including splashing out a club-record fee for attacking midfielder Romano Schmid from Werder Bremen. Schmid will likely sit in a classic trequartista role in Frosinone’s 3-4-1-2 formation, and be the man who makes things happen and test a Juventus defense that hasn’t always looked totally solid during the handful of preseason friendlies.
It’s a tricky matchup for sure — and one that Juve will certainly have to manage well to come away with three points to open the season.
But the funny thing is, Juve opened the season quite well last season. Or, at least we can say they won some games to begin the 2025-26 season. When it went bad, it went bad in a hurry and ultimately saw Igor Tudor dismissed from his job before the month of October came to an end. There was a good start in there, though. I get that it’s easy to forget because of … well, everything else.
Spalletti has had a full preseason. He has gotten a striker he has wanted since the winter mercato. He has gotten the center back signing he long desired, too. The summer mercato has not been great, but it hasn’t been a total bust (on paper) by any means.
So now, with the transfer window still open, we get to see the games start for real. The first of 38 matchdays is nearly upon us. As a wise man on this website said a little earlier, it’s time to get hurt again.
TEAM NEWS
- Unfortunately, Spalletti will not be entering the opening game of the season with a full roster of available players. The most notable one is Federico Gatti, who has been dealing with an ankle injury ever since he was (inadvertently?) taken out by a fan as part of the field storming at the beginning of the second half of the family match against the Next Gen squad on Monday.
- Also out injured is young striker Jeff Ekhator, who has been training training away from the group for much of the past week.
- Not called up for the season opener is goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio, who is set to finalize his loan move to Premier League side Bournemouth in the next couple of days.
- The other goalkeeper who is (likely) on the way out, Mattia Perin, has been called up by Spalletti. Perin, however, is not expected to start and this is likely merely out of precaution more than anything else as he looks set to join Palermo in the near future.
- A player who also got called up to face Frosinone? Nico Gonzalez! He will be wearing the classic winger kit number of 31.
- Spalletti didn’t give many clues when it comes to his starting lineup during his pre-match press conference, but he did say that two summer signings will play: Randal Kolo Muani and Guglielmo Vicario.
- With Khephren Thuram still working his way back into full fitness — he didn’t appear in any of Juve’s friendlies — the double pivot expected to face Frosinone is Manuel Locatelli and Douglas Luiz.
- The benefit of this being the season opener? Nobody is at risk of yellow card suspensions. Enjoy it while it lasts!
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
There’s a lot of ways we can go with this just because it’s the first game of a brand new season.
Ultimately, though, you can’t win games if you don’t score goals. And Juventus just spent nearly three entire transfer windows trying to bring in the same striker. They may have gotten that striker, but it wasn’t cheap nor without plenty of waiting.
And with that price tag now comes expectations — and a lot of that — now on the shoulders of Randal Kolo Muani.
Kolo Muani will be leading the line on Sunday evening. This is what we know, and it’s what we expected to see considering how he is very much the clear-cut top striker on this roster. There’s no more competing with Dusan Vlahovic for minutes like we saw during RKM’s first stint in Turin. Instead, Vlahovic has taken his act to Turkiye and Kolo Muani has taken over the No. 9 shirt.
It’s something that some are in favor, others are not convinced by and others are just waiting to see so that they’re not jumping to conclusions just yet.
But, guess what? Juventus need the version of Kolo Muani that was a genuine threat during his first stint with the club. Not the one that was looking unhappy with Tottenham Hotspur — mainly because a return to Juve didn’t materialize — for much of last season. Instead, they need the one that is happy and playing like it because he’s now back at the club he’s spent the better part of the last 18 months wanting to come back to.
Both for on-field success and to simply justify shelling out so much money for him this summer.
Maybe banking on Kolo Muani being happy to be back at Juventus is simplistic and everything. We know that there’s a whole lot of reasons as to why his loan spell at Spurs was not very good at all. But he’s back at Juve now and will get every opportunity to show he is a striker who can lead this team to better days.
One season opener will be the determining factor, but a strong start to his return to Juve can only help start to potentially change the viewpoint that he is not that kind of player. Only one way to find out, right?
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026.
Where: Stadio Benito Stirpe, Frosinone, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 6:30 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 5:30 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, 11:30 a.m. Central time, 9:30 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: NBC Universo (United States); TLN (Canada).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, fuboTV, NBC Universo NOW, Telemundo Deportes En Vivo (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italia (Italy).
Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Bluesky. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.
