When it comes to Juventus’ standing in the Champions League, there is not much of a difference in approach from Matchday 5 now onto Matchday 6. Just because they now have a win under their belt in Europe — which, again, is not necessarily you want to suddenly boast about in the first days of December — it won’t change the challenge that Luciano Spalletti’s squad still faces.
They knew the situation two weeks ago against Bodø/Glimt. And they certainly know it now.
It’s pretty much win or you’re going
to make qualifying for the play-off round an incredibly tough possibility.
With three matchdays to go, Juve face a situation where they pretty much have to win every single one of them to be comfortable with their standing in the UCL league phase table. The first of those remaining three matchups comes Wednesday night, when one of the smallest clubs in the competition, Pafos FC of Cyprus, makes their way to Turin for a meeting of clubs who are both sitting on the cusp of either moving up a few more spots with a win or risk going into the final 180 minutes of the league phase teetering on the fence of qualifying for the play-off round or seeing an European run end next month.
For one team, though, missing the play-off round would be a much bigger deal than the other.
I think we can guess which is which. It doesn’t really take any sort of inside information to figure that one out.
After Tuesday night’s slate of games, this is how things look when it comes to the league phase table:
- 23rd place: Juventus — 6 points
- 24th place: Pafos — 6 points
Well, that’s not exactly a great situation to find yourself in — especially when you consider that the cutoff for the play-off round is, you guessed it, 24th place. (Ironically, the team to have just beaten Juventus over the weekend, Napoli, are sitting right above the Bianconeri in 22nd place. So, as you can imagine, things are going great in Europe for a couple of Italy’s biggest clubs. Then you have Atalanta in third and Inter Milan in fifth, so there’s also that.)
Juventus and Pafos have taken different paths to their total of six points. Juventus have had high-scoring draws before a comeback win on the frigid artificial turf in the Arctic Circle. Pafos, on the other hand, have played to a pair of scoreless draws in their first two away fixtures in the Champions League this season. They have tried to absorb as much pressure as they can, and as WhoScored notes, have allowed seven goals from an expected total of nearly 11. They’ve faced the second-most amount of shots, too — which pretty much tells you that their whole goal is to try and defend like hell and try to hit you when you least expect it. (Maybe, you know, in the way that Max Allegri has tried to win games at Juventus before.)
How much that good fortune continues for this club from Cyprus remains to be seen. But it’s a pretty simple fact that expecting Pafos to suddenly change what they’re doing against a Juventus side that has struggled to break down defensive approaches would probably be the wrong path to go down. This feels like the kind of matchup in which you know Juve will be the favorite, but also realize Spalletti’s squad will have to try and strike quick to avoid any late-game craziness at all costs.
That means a first half like Juventus showed in Naples just ain’t going to cut it. It really doesn’t matter if it’s against Pafos in the Champions League or even a relegation battler domestically, that kind of performance isn’t going to result in much of anything good happenings for Spalletti and Co. Heck, a first half like we saw against Bodø/Glimt won’t be good enough, either. (At least they figured it out for the most part in the second half, right?)
This will be Spalletti’s biggest test. Juve’s coming off a bad loss and needs to win in the Champions League. If the 12-point mark is what they need to hit to ensure that they are somewhere in the play-off round field, then a win over Pafos gives them a small room for error heading into the final two league phase fixtures. But anything less than a win against Pafos will make life even hard than it already is — and that’s the last thing this team needs during a time in which they still look like they’re trying to figure out what their new manager actually wants.
TEAM NEWS
- Dusan Vlahovic is out injured.
- Federico Gatti is out injured.
- HOWEVER … there was some good injury news to come out of Turin on Tuesday, with both Daniele Rugani and Gleison Bremer returning to training. Spalletti confirmed that both players will be called up to face Pafos, although both of them are almost certainly coming off the bench and nothing more than that.
- That means Juve’s starting defense will likely be the same trio it was over the weekend: Pierre Kalulu, Lloyd Kelly and Teun Koopmeiners.
- Spalletti also confirmed that Edon Zhegrova is set to make his first Juventus start on Wednesday night. (Gee, we may be talking about that a little more shortly.)
- Just what the domino effect of Zhegrova being in the starting lineup against Pafos remains to be seen. It could be as simple as him coming into the lineup for somebody like Francisco Conceição, or it could be a little more than just that. But considering how things went in the first half against Napoli over the weekend, Spalletti sticking with Kenan Yildiz as a false nine of sorts is probably extremely unlikely.
- With Bremer and Rugani set to return to the squad on Wednesday night, that means the only other two injured players are Carlo Pinsoglio and Arek Milik, with the latter not part of Juve’s league phase squad list.
- The last time Juventus faced a club from Cyprus was nearly half a century ago.
- While they haven’t done a lot of winning at home in Europe of late, Juve also hasn’t lost much at the Allianz in continental competition, with just two losses in their last 11 fixtures in Turin.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
Oh, you mean the guy who so many of us have wanted to see get more minutes is about to get more minutes?
That’s right. He is — and we know this because his manager said so himself.
As much as the focus will be on the young man wearing the No. 10 jersey for Juventus on Wednesday night — and rightfully so! — there’s also going to be a lot of interest in the guy who wears No. 11 in bianconero, too.
Edon Zhegrova is set to make his first start as a Juventus player on Wednesday night. It has maybe taken a little longer than some thought it would, but with the physical limitation he’s had since coming back from his lengthy injury absence, it’s a moment that will come a couple of weeks before Christmas.
The question obviously becomes this: How much will Zhegrova be able to give Juventus in said first start?
We are bound to get the tricks that have lit up Juve’s social media channels whenever he plays. We will get the flicks that have done the same. Those are a given because Zhegrova, like Yildiz, is a player who loves to make the opposing player who is marking him look absolutely stupid as much as he possibly can.
We just don’t know how many minutes Zhegrova will have in his legs. And for a team like Pafos that will almost certainly try and outlast Juventus rather than try and get on them quick — especially with the game being in Turin — just how long this first start will be remains a rather giant question mark no matter how exciting it might be to see him finally be included in the starting XI.
To date, Zhegrova has played more than 25 minutes off the bench just twice with Juventus. The most minutes he’s played in a single game this season (28) has come with Kosovo rather than Juventus —and that was during the most recent international break. But since then, his three subsequent appearances with Juve have totaled all of about 25 minutes (plus some stoppage time thrown in). That’s not much, which makes you wonder where his legs are at physically more than anything else.
He’s clearly not at 100% fitness yet. That’s obvious. It’s something that Igor Tudor said he didn’t want to push out of fear of seeing Zhegrova be forced to miss even more time than he already has. It’s something that you feel like Spalletti has continued to closely monitor since he became manager in late October, too.
But, for now, getting a little more Zhegrova in our lives feels like the kind of spark Juventus need to try and get more of these days. It can’t always be Yildiz being the only threat in attack, and you know Zhegrova is going to be happy to take on the role of guy who also tries to destroy the opposing defense as much as he can.
MATCH INFO
When: Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025.
Where: Juventus Stadium Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 2 p.m. Central time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TNT Sports 8 (United Kingdom); Sport Mediaset (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); Amazon Prime (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.
