As Juventus players and coaches walked across the field at Marassi with their heads hung and another opening 45 minutes having passed without any semblance of a good performance in sight, I couldn’t help but think one thing: I damn well wished that smoke from the pre-game flares never cleared.
Because then we wouldn’t have seen the mistakes to come our way no matter how predictable they feel these days. We wouldn’t have seen the fact that this team was shifting to a formation that brought more defensive
stability only to see Genoa, a team with just six goals on entire season, score two in the opening 35 minutes.
We would have missed it all — and I would have been totally OK with it.
All of this because Juventus’ 2026-27 season hit its latest low point on Wednesday night. They fell behind less than 12 minutes in. They fell behind by even more 25 minutes later. And along the way, Juventus looked like a team that really couldn’t do much of anything as they slumped to a two-goal halftime deficit and eventually lost by that same 2-0 scoreline to Daniele De Rossi’s Genoa. Maybe in previous year it could be chalked up to a weird midweek one-off coming off a busy couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it’s the same kind of tune we’ve seen so many times before as this season has gone on — and one that really doesn’t have an immediate end in sight.
So nearly a year to the date of Juventus hiring Luciano Spalletti as manager to replace Igor Tudor, now you have to wonder how long the Tuscan tactician who was so motivated to prove his time with the Italian national team was a thing of the past actually might have left in Turin.
Yes, I get there are injuries. You can’t expect the train to just keep on running smoothly when you have players like Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Khephren Thuram and others out injured for months on end. Whatever depth Juventus entered the season with has been zapped because they’ve got nearly an entire starting XI worth of players currently out injured. And you throw in a schedule that essentially has you playing every 72 hours or so and the players who are available are going to be driven into the ground.
But, with all of those caveats out of the way, there’s only so many ways you can describe that this was bad.
And this most certainly was bad.
I don’t know if this will be a performance that will be the thing that kicks in any sort of serious change. Juventus are just petering along right now with no sort of consistency other than being just generally unwatchable. As we discussed earlier this week, the win over Lecce at least showed some sort of way that Juventus could maybe — just maybe! — find some sort of beginning to fixing at least one or two of their issues. And then, for whatever reason, Spalletti changed it up a bit and that same functionality that was present over the weekend was gone faster than the smoke we saw hanging over the field to begin the game.
The end result:
- Four shots on goal against a defense that had allowed 13 goals in their first eight Serie A games this season.
- Two of those shots coming in second-half stoppage time.
- Getting shut out in league play for the second time in the last three games.
- Losing your third game in the first nine Serie A fixtures of the season.
And yet … it’s not a surprise. Juventus, on Oct. 28, 2026, is not a very good team — at all. Therefore, none of this is a surprise. Every bit of optimism I had before the season started — and, I admit, it wasn’t much, but there was some lingering around in this 40-year-old noggin of mine — it’s all completely gone.
It took all of nine games into the Serie A season. Nice one, guys. Job well done.
Genoa defended like hounds, they countered like their manager would when he was strapping up some boots and they got every bit of the three points they wholeheartedly deserved. There was one team that showed up in this game, and it wasn’t the one in pink that calls Turin home. That team, especially in the first half, was a shell of its previous self.
But hey, at least the pink jerseys looked nice. Can’t wait for the next influencer on Juve’s IG account telling me that I need to buy one for myself for the holidays.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- At this point, is it worth even saying much else? Whatever that was that we watched wasn’t worth going into much detail about.
- Nobody in a Juventus shirt had a good game. Not a single one. And if you think they did, then you’re probably just watching a replay of an old Juventus trip to Genoa. It certainly didn’t happen on this night.
- Matchday 9 is now a thing of the past and Juve are still behind Frosinone in the Serie A table. Good times.
- You know the pressure is getting to Spalletti because he’s just a whole lot more irritable on the sidelines. No longer does he come off as the quirky philosopher who will weave in between the meanings of life and talking tactics. Nope, not one bit.
- I can’t wait to see what Andrea Cambiaso’s projected value on transfermrkt is the next time it updates. It certainly ain’t going to be anything good. That man’s value continues to just plunge and Juve will likely get a fraction of what they were rumored to want for him even last summer with how he’s playing this season.
- Remember the days of when Manchester City wanted something like €50 or €60 million for him? That feels so long ago. So, so long ago.
- Federico Gatti playing as a striker in the first half? Ah, that must be the desperation setting in.
- I miss the 2025 version of Pierre Kalulu. That guy was fun.
- I miss the 2024 version of Gleison Bremer. That guy was fun, too.
- So you need goals and you hook Kerim Alajbegović, a guy who is willing to shoot whenever possible? I don’t get it. Then again, I don’t get a lot about this Juventus team these days.
- Douglas Luiz had his best game in a Juventus jersey three days ago and then was not very good. Ah well. These these happen in football, as a wise man once said.
- Isolated up front, thy name is Randal Kolo Muani.
- I repeat: Juventus had four shots on goal the entire game. That is awful.
- Times Genoa have won back-to-back Serie A games this season: 1.
- Times Juventus have won back-to-back Serie A games this season: 1.
- I’d say I would go get the bourbon, but this Juventus season has sapped me of actually wanting to do that, too. Just a listless ship at sea and nobody actually seems to know what to do about it.
- I’m tired, boss.
- I honestly didn’t think I’d write close to 1,200 words about this. But hey, go ahead and donate one dollar for every word that I have written about Juventus’ loss to Genoa because I feel like we deserve something good in our lives. Maybe I’ll even buy the pizza if you want.
- Honestly, I got nothing else to say. I’m gonna go take a nap.
