At points of the second half on Saturday evening, there was an emerging feeling that Juventus might not even come away with a single point during their annual visit to the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi.
Why?
For all the possession, for all of the time on the ball and for all of the advantage in passing that Juve had over the host Hellas Verona, it wasn’t the team in bianconero looked the more likely to actually win. It didn’t matter how many attacking players Igor Tudor threw on as the second half went
on, things were simply off and certainly nowhere close to replicating what they’ve done in their first two games out of the September international break.
Juventus have officially recorded their first frustrating result of the 2025-26 season, a 1-1 draw with Hellas Verona in which it could have easily been all three points dropped and a first loss on the record of Igor Tudor’s squad. It was the kind of performance befitting of a team that has expended so much energy over those previous two games in which wild late-game comebacks were needed to get the win over Inter Milan and a draw with Borussia Dortmund, respectively. But ultimately, Juventus’ ineffectiveness and sub-par performance for much of Saturday’s trip to Verona doomed them as they dropped points for the first time domestically.
And in some ways, you feel like Juventus got lucky to get a point in this one because of how they played.
It wasn’t a good showing. There weren’t the kind of highs that we saw in the win over Inter and the high-scoring draw with Dortmund. Juventus may have had 72% of the possession and more than doubled up Hellas Verona in terms of passes completed, but the Bianconeri ended up getting out-shot by the home side, 14-10. For the second consecutive game in which he started against a domestic opponent, Dusan Vlahovic was extremely isolated and a virtual non-factor outside of a couple of brief moments. The midfield misplaced so many passes you probably lost count even before halftime. The defense, playing their first game of the season without the resting Gleison Bremer, looked far from the strong unit that Juve was against their first two provincial opponents this season.
It was not great.
With all of that possession Juve had, they finished with a grand total of 0.38 xG. That’s not good — at all.
Of course, in their previous two games during the past week, they were scoring goals that seemed near-impossible when they were about to hit the back of the net. Even Francisco Conceição’s opener in the 19th was far from an xG monster. But in those two games, they were also creating scoring chances to enable themselves to actually get more than just the first goal.
They barely did that against Hellas Verona.
Sure, Hellas played well and proved to be a better performer than what their table position entering the weekend was. But it’s impossible to escape just how much Juventus struggled to do enough to win in a matchup that they shouldn’t usually be dropping points in no matter how tricky a visit to the Bentegodi can be.
Because of it, Tudor can’t stake claim to what other Juventus managers like Giovanni Trapattoni, Marcello Lippi, Antonio Conte and Max Allegri have all done in their first (full) seasons as manager — win their first four games of a new season. Juve may still be unbeaten this season, but this one feels like a pretty decently sized letdown no matter how predictable it was a few hours before kickoff.
INITIAL REACTION AND RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
- Serie A refereeing continues to show you just how bad it is every week.
- Gift Orban still able to play after the kind of action we’ve seen Juventus players sent off for more than a couple of times during Tudor’s time as manager? Well, sure then.
- It’s only fitting that Orban ends up being named the man of the match in a game he could have easily been sent off but was only shown a yellow. Never change, Serie A refereeing standards.
- I have to say, that was both thoroughly disappointing but also a somewhat predictable result because they just looked absolutely gassed both mentally and physically well before the final whistle sounded.
- Considering the two games they have already played during this first busy eight-game stretch of the season, you could see it coming. It was, in fact, a trap. And if it wasn’t for VAR, it would have been worse.
- That doesn’t forgive the performance at all. It’s context, sure, but it’s also true that if you want to do better in Serie A than what Juventus has done the last couple of years, you have to push through and get the three points rather than what actually happened against Hellas Verona.
- Still wondering what Pierre Kalulu was doing when it comes to his marking on the go-ahead goal that ended up being chalked off due to VAR. Because … man, that was not good.
- Still wondering what Joao Mario was doing on the handball that gifted Hellas Verona a penalty.
- This Juventus defense without Bremer looks a lot like last season’s defense — and that’s not necessarily a good thing to think about knowing how all of that went.
- Federico Gatti got a yellow card for something in which he knows better and then, all of a couple of minutes later, made a very bad giveaway that forced a big save out of Michele Di Gregorio. Ah, yes.
- Two of three Juventus center backs playing the majority of the game on a yellow seems like a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see how it all plays out. (It ended up being OK, but it didn’t feel good at the time.)
- Is Vasilije Adžić officially a midfielder now? So much for him being thought of as an attacking winger. He was certainly slotted in right next to Teun Koopmeiners when he came on in the second half.
- Speaking of Koopmeiners, the struggles just roll on. I don’t know what to think whenever he plays now. You’re hoping for the best but thinking the opposite will probably be more likely to happen.
- Vlahovic had just two touches through the first 15 minutes.
- Vlahovic had just five touches through the first 30 minutes.
- Vlahovic had just nine tocuhes in the first half.
- Vlahovic, subbed off in the 57th minute, finished with all of 13 touches.
- A note on my notepad: It’s the 51st minute and Vlahovic finally got a look at goal.
- It was a pretty good look, but still not a simple kind of shot to try and convert. Then again, if you’re an in-form striker (and the highest paid player in the league), you probably feel like you should have converted that one.
- When was the last time Juventus had at least seven minutes listed at the beginning of second-half stoppage time in Serie A? I can’t remember!
- It’s a shame because Kenan Yildiz’s first-ever game wearing the captain’s armband — the result of Manuel Locatelli being subbed off to begin the second half and Bremer being rested — should be a memorable result, not some kind of drab and disappointing draw against Hellas Verona.
- A related Yildiz note: That boy looked TIRED TIRED by the time the last portions of the second half arrived. Yes, even somebody who is 20 years old doesn’t have an endless supply of energy. It’s hard to believe, I know.
- Wondering if Juventus’ strategy in the dying minutes was “Let’s just hope Kenan does something cool” because it sometimes felt that way.
- Even with all of those attacking players on the field in the final 10-15 minutes, Juventus still struggled to do much in the final third. Hopefully it was just one of those days. Hopefully.
- Let’s hope that a full seven days between games can benefit this team because seeing them this drained in the final minutes of a game in late-ish September isn’t exactly a great sign considering the schedule is only going to get more and more busy as the next few weeks go on.
- Pass the bourbon, friends. Juventus just threw out a clunker. At least they got a point, I guess.
