We’re barely a month into the season and we’re already talking about a crisis. Thankfully, it’s not a relegation crisis; instead we’re dealing with a remarkable series of injuries to key players.
At the time of writing, eight Juventus players are injured: Manuel Locatelli, Andrea Cambiaso, Kamil Grabara, Khéphren Thuram, Juan Cabal, Jeff Ekhator, Kenan Yildiz, and Jeremie Boga. (Randal Kolo Muani had surgery on a fractured finger but should be available to play, so I did not include him in this list,
while Weston McKennie very recently returned to full fitness after missing a few weeks due to injury.)
Despite this crisis, Juventus has started the season fairly well. Despite a chaotic 3-2 loss in Sassuolo, the results have generally been positive and as expected. As we enjoy the international games — England manager Thomas Tuchel noted that since he has become a national team coach, it’s misleading to call it a “break” — let’s look back at the action in September.
Doctor’s orders
We started the month with our first big test of the season: a home match against AC Milan. Like us, Milan have been in a period of seemingly permanent transition the last few years. Encouragingly, Juventus were the better team for the majority of the match and created a few good chances. The biggest opportunity fell to Francisco Conceição when he hit the post with a low, driven shot from the edge of the box. Milan took the lead against the run of play through the superstar young Italian Alphadjo Cissè. The 19-year-old hit a low shot that nutmegged Pierre Kalulu and caught goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario off guard.
We got some good opportunities through new signing Bob’s Burgers Nick Woltemade and Randal Kolo Muani but a combination of wasteful finishing — tell me something new… — and good defending denied us the equalizer. However, the Bianconeri showed tremendous fighting spirit to recover from this setback late in stoppage time when makeshift striker Federico Gatti headed in a pinpoint cross from Teun Koopmeiners: 1-1 and two points dropped rather than one gained.
Then came that game against Sassuolo.
After an uneventful first half with few/no chances for either time, things exploded in the final 25 minutes of the game. It started when our defense was out of position due to Zeki Celik being caught too high up the pitch and the rest of the defense was too slow to shuffle across. Veteran Nemanja Matic slid a perfect through ball to Sebastiano Esposito who was through 1-on-1 and finished past Vicario. But it has been a season of redemption for the Juventus rejects. One of those, Edon Zhegrova, came off the bench to score the equalizer in the 82nd minute.
Remarkably, Sassuolo hit back with their second goal thanks to a goal from Kieron Bowie after a sloppy and rare error from Gleison Bremer in the buildup. But wait, Zhegrova strikes again! He played a great 1-2 with Kolo Muani and drilled a low shot for the second equalizer of the game.
Alas, Sassuolo had the last laugh. In an act of desperation in search of the winner, the Bianconeri threw almost everyone forward in attack. Sassuolo hit us on a simple 2-v-2 counterattack in which Juventus loanee Vasilije Adžić was up against an exhausted Douglas Luiz. Adžić curled it around both the Brazilian and Vicario in goal to send his team into delirium: 3-2.
We bounced back from this crazy loss with a thumping 5-0 victory of NEC Nijmegen in the Europa League league phase opener. The rejuvenated Nico González continued his great start to the season with a 9th minute goal after he received a goal kick from Kamil Grabara and the NEC goalkeeper Nikolas Polster made a huge error to give Nico an easy finish.
Teenager Karim Alajbegovic doubled our lead when he rifled in a thunderous shot in from the edge of the box after a nice passing move that ended with an assist from McKennie. The good times kept on coming as González went from scorer to provider when he won a penalty that Woltemade then scored in the 35th minute.
Both teams realized the game was effectively over by half time and the rest of the game continued at a pretty slow pace. Kolo Muani turned on the style in the last 15 minutes by bursting past the NEC defense and assisting for Celik’s first goal for Juventus. The Frenchman then scored his first goal of his second stay at the club when he beat Polster to a long ball and finished in front of an open goal. Final score: 5-0!
We played one more game before the extended period of international games: a home game against a struggling (and also in transition) Atalanta. Conceição scored the opener after a dominant Bianconeri played some fantastic short passes to bring the ball to Celik, who slid the low cross for the Portuguese winner to finish inside the box.
We created lots of chances throughout the game and scored the deciding goal in the 77th minute who scored a solid header from Zhegrova’s corner kick. A first home victory versus Atalanta since 2018 and a great way to end a topsy-turvy month of football!
Juventus Women
It was an extremely busy month for Juventus Women: seven games in four weeks, averaging almost two games per week. The first was a Champions League qualifier against St. Polten. The first leg of this fixture ended 3-0, so the team focused on protecting their lead. Tatiana Pinto scored the game’s first goal just before half-time, which meant that Alma Aagaard’s equalizer in the 56th minute was little more than a consolation goal: 1-1 (4-1 victory on aggregate).
Juventus progressed to the semifinal of the Serie A Women’s Cup after beating AC Milan 1-0 in the final group game. A late goal from Ana Capeta sealed the narrow, hard-fought victory. They faced Inter in the semis and beat them by the same scoreline thanks to Pinto’s deflected strike in the 34th minute.
Roma awaited us in the final. As always, it was a closely fought match. Ex-Juventina Valentina Bergamaschi crossed for Kayleigh van Dooren to score in the 27th minute to give Roma the lead and Maya Antoine doubled Roma’s lead in the 55th minute from a corner. But the Bianconere hit back almost immediately. First, Alba Redondo capitalized on a huge error from the goalkeeper to score the 2-1. The real drama came deep into stoppage time of the second half: goalscorer Antoine handled the ball in the box and Redondo scored the penalty to send the game into extra time.
Juventus were the slightly better team in extra time but couldn’t convert their chances so the game went to penalties. Roma missed two penalties, we scored all of ours, and as a result Juventus has now won both editions of the Serie A Women’s Cup!
Unfortunately we couldn’t overturn a two-goal deficit again in the next game against Benfica in the Champions League. Benfica’s Marit Bratberg scored a VAR-awarded penalty just before half-time and scored her second from a fabulous freekick on the hour mark. Redondo gave us hope a few minutes before the end when she picked up a pass from Stølen Godø and beat the goalkeeper with a low right-footed shot: 2-1.
Another game, another early goal from the opposition. This time, Napoli took the lead in the 16th minute through Emilie Mece, who just joined Napoli from Juventus, in the opening round of the new Serie A season. The in-form Redondo equalized five minutes later and Stølen Godø gave us the lead early in the second half. Juventus protected the lead well and finished the game off in the 90th minute thanks to a goal from new signing Japanese forward Remini Chiba: 3-1.
The final game of the month saw us travel to Sweden to play Hacken in the Champions League. After a quiet and goalless first half, we turned on the style after the break with three goals. Pinto scored Juventus’ 100th goal in the Champions League after converting from a great Amaiur Sarriegi cross. Stølen Godø headed in the second goal from Eva Schatzer’s cross and Redondo capped off a phenomenal month for her by scoring the third goal in the 88th minute. An easy 3-0 victory to end September!
Big circles
As I mentioned earlier, so far it has been a season of redemption for many of the Juventus players who were flops and/or expected to be sold. Zhegrova almost single-handedly rescued the game for us against Sassuolo, Nico González is putting in major shifts in both attack (two goals, one assist in five appearances) and defense (playing wingback against Atalanta), Koopmeiners has scored a goal and given an important assist in the game against Milan, and Douglas Luiz has been recalled to the Brazil national team and is a guaranteed starter in central midfield.
To me, Luiz is so far the standout performer of the group. Given the injury crisis the team is in and the significant absences of both Locatelli and Thuram (and, for a short period, McKennie), there is tremendous responsibility on his shoulders to fill those gaps and stabilize such a key position of the pitch. That’s a big ask for someone who has spent the last 12 months bouncing between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest on loans and barely playing.
But he has returned to Turin with a vengeance.
While he hasn’t been perfect, he has been a dependable, solid presence in the center of midfield. His short passing and ball retention has been great and his pass completion rates are routinely over 90%. He has been given a real challenge due to Locatelli’s extended absence. He has to absorb both the defensive duties that Locatelli did and some of the (especially long) passing that our captain performed. The former is going to be challenging because that is not exactly what he’s known for so this is going to be a big test for the Brazilian.
If he passes this test, then those rumors of a contract extension will be fully justified. I believe in him, now let’s see what he can do.
