We have reached the final leg of Juventus’ big three-game stretch that we all knew would go a long way in determining just how much of a chance the Bianconeri had to qualify for the Champions League entering the final month of the 2025-26 season.
Little did we know that on top of winning those first two fixtures, Juve would get a massive amount of help to put them in prime position to qualify for Europe’s premier club competition — and then some — as they got ready to head to the San Siro to meet
up with an old friend from much better times (at least the first time around) once more.
Things have changed massively in the last few weeks. And come Sunday night, there is the chance to say that once again if Juventus can keep their sudden winning run going.
Juventus’ second and final trip to the San Siro this weekend will see Luciano Spalletti’s squad put their recent uptick in winning form on the line against Max Allegri’s AC Milan that are far from in their best moment of the 2025-26 season. With Juve’s run of five wins in their last six games and Milan’s recent downward trend, the two arch-rivals are now separated by all of three points in the standings. That means, my friends, if Juventus were to win on Sunday night, they would be level on points and ahead in third place on goal differential — moving them ahead of a team that has been in second or third place for the vast majority of the season and looked like an absolute lock to have an easy top-four finish to Allegri’s first year back at the club.
Instead, Milan’s struggles over their last couple of months have now seen them both be overtaken by Napoli — which rolled to a win on Friday night to move into second place all by themselves — and now potentially by a Juventus team that just a couple of weeks ago wasn’t even in the top four.
Ah, but how the (recent) times have changed.
Out of Juventus’ final five fixtures remaining this season, this is clearly the biggest of them all. After this big three-game stretch in which we are entering the final leg of this weekend, the landing is rather soft, with back-to-back fixtures against two teams in the relegation zone, Hellas Verona and Lecce, next up on the schedule. The highest-placed team left on Juventus’ schedule is Torino in 13th, with the Derby della Mole on the final weekend of the season hopefully simply a rivalry game where Champions League qualification worries aren’t present. That doesn’t mean you can take your foot off the gas — “run through the tape!” they will scream to you if you’d like — but it is a favorable final four fixtures left on the schedule.
But to think about all that now is getting a little too far ahead of ourselves. For now, Milan is the focus. Same goes for how to break down a Milan side that will surely try and grind out this kind of matchup because that is what Allegri is want to do so often.
How can Spalletti’s squad break down Milan’s expected low block?
How will they be able to limit Milan’s speed on the counterattack out of said low block?
Can Juve take their chances against a Milan team that has looked far from defensively solid in recent weeks?
I could go on, but for now I will limit to that simply because Juventus having more of the possession and just what they will be able to do with it feels like a certainty against an Allegri-coached team that went corto muso in their slim 1-0 win against 19th-place Hellas Verona last weekend. That was a win in Milan recorded their only shutout over the last five games, and a performance that left some in the Italian media asking if Rafa Leao did much of anything outside of assisting on what proved to be the game-winning goal.
So when it comes to how these two teams are playing entering such a big late-season fixture, it’s pretty easy to say that Juventus are in the better form. They’ve won five of their last six, while Milan has three of their last five and barely got past Serie B-bound Hellas Verona just a week ago. It’s got folks wondering about this being another instance of a late-season Allegri collapse of sorts.
Whether it’s actually that or something different, well that remains to be seen, I guess.
But Juventus certainly have the chance to pile on to Milan’s struggles and late-season frustrations on Sunday night. And not only would it be pretty nuts to say that Juve — a team that felt like it had its Champions League hopes on life support coming out of the international break — is level on points with Milan in third, going into the final month of the season on even stronger footing is a nice thing to think about compared to where they were.
Plus, winning at the San Siro is always fun. It’s the kind of party that you want to crash every single time. Or maybe in this case it’s going to be an incredibly nervy stadium based on Milan’s current form. Either way, a big win like this could do wonders for Champions League qualification and the overall feeling about Spalleti’s squad with just a few games remaining this season.
TEAM NEWS
- As has been the case for a handful of times in recent months, Luciano Spalletti did not hold a pre-match press conference the day before the showdown at the San Siro. Therefore, we’re not totally sure about the fitness of a few players, most notably a certain young Turkish star named Kenan Yildiz.
- Much like last week, Yildiz trained separately pretty much all week due to his lingering knee inflammation issue that he’s had for the better part of the last few weeks. Yildiz, who played the final 20 minutes in last weekend’s win over Bologna, did return to training on Saturday and is expected to be called up — and maybe even start — for the trip to Milan.
- Dusan Vlahovic partially trained with the group on Friday and was thought of to potentially be a surprise call-up against Milan. Like Yildiz, he returned to training with the rest of the group on Saturday, but it’s still an unknown about his status to face Milan, a club he has again been linked to joining this coming summer on a free-agent deal in recent days.
- Mattia Perin returned to training with the group on Friday, but Michele Di Gregorio is expected to keep his starting spot in goal. Di Gregorio has been in goal for each one of Juventus’ three straight shutouts entering the trip to Milan.
- Also back in training with the rest of the group late in the week: Khephren Thuram, Emil Holm and Vasilije Adzic.
- After ending his goal drought last weekend against Bologna, Jonathan David is expected to maintain his spot in the starting lineup. (It’s easy when you’re one of the few strikers actually healthy and the other option is Loïs Openda, a player that Spalletti has absolutely no faith in these days.)
- Yet again, Gleison Bremer and Lloyd Kelly are both a yellow card away from having to serve a one-game suspension. Considering this is the final game of Juve’s big three-game stretch of fixtures and Hellas Verona is next up on the schedule, it would be a little easier to absorb compared to the alternative.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
In a couple of months, Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic will be teammates together for the United States men’s national team. They will have plenty of pressure on both themselves and their team as a whole considering just how much oxygen has been spent talking about their home World Cup the last four years.
On Sunday, though, they will be opponents.
And, entering the final fixture of April, there’s also this: One USMNT standout in Serie A is playing very well, while the other one is nowhere near the kind of form he was in at the start of the season that had people saying he was arguably the league’s best player. The one in good form is the one who wears bianconero. Good, right?
For those of us like yours truly who live in the good old U-S-of-A, we’re going to be hearing a lot about McKennie and Pulisic over the course of the broadcast no matter how they’re both playing both on the day, over the course of the last month or just the season in general. That is to be expected, but it’s also a case where these two players are very much central to how their respective teams might play on Sunday night. They are not part-time players. They are key figures.
And when it comes to Weston, we know what comes along with that.
Not just that he will be an important piece to a potential Juventus victory. But that he will also liklely be doing so from a few different positions on the field at the same time. He could end up playing as a wingback if Spalletti decides to go with three-man backline again. Or he could play in his usual spot behind David if it’s more of a 4-2-3-1 formation against Milan. Either way, we know McKennie is important to what Juve do — especially under Spalletti.
McKennie is closing in on his first double-digit goal campaign in all competitions. If he finishes the season strong, he could very well get to a double-digit assist total as well, although that one seems a little more unlikely. But his 15 goal contributions in all competitions is by far the best mark he’s had in his career, and the most he’s had since the 2023-24 season under Allegri in which he recorded one of the highest assist totals in all of Serie A.
So to only continue that form against not only his former manager but also his USMNT teammate that also has so much pinned to his success on the field, that would be quite the thing in their final game against one another before such an important summer arrives in the United States.
We’ve become so accustomed to McKennie having big performances in big games that it feels quite natural at this point. If that happens again, then Juventus getting three more points and moving level on 66 points with Milan in the standings just becomes all the more possible.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, April 26, 2026.
Where: Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, Milan, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 8:45 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 7:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, 1:45 p.m. Central time, 11:45 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: Fox Deportes (United States); TLN (Canada); TNT Sports 1 (United Kingdom).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA, fuboTV, Fox One, Fox Sports app, FoxSports.com (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italy, Sky Go Italia, NOW TV (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.
