It didn’t take long for Juventus to get some help when it comes to closing the gap between themselves and Como in fourth place. It came from a somewhat unexpected source by a very unexpected scoreline, but it was something that resulted in the three-point gap between the two sides going down to one.
This weekend could very well be the same kind of situation — especially when you remember that Como are facing the team currently sitting atop the Serie A standings.
But unlike Easter Monday when Juventus
had a provincial club on the schedule, they now must also try and fend off a team that is clad in nerazzurro — this one being about an hour or so on train from Milan.
Twenty-four hours before Como face league-leading Inter Milan on the shores of Lake Como, Juventus will take the field at the New Balance Stadium in Bergamo looking to do something that they weren’t able to do in the Coppa Italia couple of months ago — beat Raffaele Palladino and Atalanta. Yes, the same Atalanta team that was the last remaining team in the Champions League before they ran into the Bayern Munich machine that has one foot in the semifinals. The same Atalanta team will advance to the Coppa Italia final with a win over Lazio in a couple of weeks. And the same Atalanta team that both bounced Juventus from the Coppa Italia back in early February and that the Bianconeri have not beaten in an actual competitive match in nearly two years.
This kicks off a huge three-game stretch for Juventus, with the next three weekends looking like this:
- Away to Atalanta
- Home to Bologna
- Away to AC Milan
Forget who Como have on the schedule for a second because for Luciano Spalletti that is a vital three-game span over the next 14 days in which Juventus will essentially continue some sort of charge toward the top four or pretty much need a miracle in the final month of the 2025-26 season to qualify for the Champions League. It already isn’t easy, but then you throw in some very tough opponents on top of it as Como try to maneuver around their toughest remaining fixtures with an advantage over Juventus.
It’s clear what Juventus have to do: just keep the pressure up.
If they can do that on a consistent basis, though, that is the bigger question that is still very far from being a certainty — or really anything close to it. This is the 2026 version of Juventus after all, where things are both very good with the potential for turning in the opposite direction quite quickly. Ya know, just as Monday’s win over Genoa pretty much reminded us all of once again.
Now it’s an away fixture against a much better and much more talented team who are never an easy opponent on their home field. Which is something Juventus know all too well from a back in early February.
Since being dumped out of the Champions League Round of 16, Atalanta have tried to get back on track against two of Serie A’s worst teams, Hellas Verona and Lecce. It’s safe to say that Atalanta’s 3-0 win over Lecce on Easter Monday went a whole lot better than grinding out a slim 1-0 victory over soon-to-be Serie B-bound Verona.
Over their last six games, both Juventus and Atalanta have picked up 11 points.
And with Atalanta just one point behind sixth-place Roma entering Matchday 32, there’s still plenty of hope for Palladino and Co. that they have a chance to qualify for the Conference League or even Europa League if they can go on a late-season run.
But it’s pretty simple for Juventus: just don’t repeat what happened the last time you visited Bergamo.
As much as Juve dominated that Feb. 5 loss in Bergamo, it was Atalanta that was about as efficient as possible when they did actually have the ball. As much as Juve had nearly 60% of the possession or nearly twice as many shots as La Dea, it didn’t matter. This was the start of a February in which Juventus’ January fortunes quickly turned into something much more unfortunate and any sort of major progress that it looked like Spalletti might be making suddenly went by the wayside. Sure, it was “only” the Coppa Italia, but it was a loss that proved to be a rather large bad omen for what was to come over the next few weeks both domestically and in Europe.
That was over two months ago, though. Just how much different Juventus are from that version of themselves is probably a little up in the air depending on who you ask. But Spalletti certainly knows that this is a weekend in which his team could go back up into fourth place for a few hours or maybe even longer than that.
Asking for a little help from Inter is never a good thing because it’s Inter. But that is the case this weekend. First Juventus need to take care of their own business, though — and that feels like a lot tougher of a task as compared to earlier this week after everybody celebrated Easter.
Let’s just hope the end result is the same kind of thing as we saw a few days ago at the Allianz.
TEAM NEWS
- Juventus will be without all-everything midfielder Weston McKennie against Atalanta on Saturday night. The versatile Texan will be serving a one-game suspension due to yellow card accumulation.
- On top of that, after barely having to deal with any sort of injury concerns coming out of the international break, Spalletti will now be without three players — including two likely starters — against Atalanta.
- Dusan Vlahovic will miss the next couple of weeks after picking up a calf injury as he was warming up during the second half. Vlahovic is certainly out of the Atalanta and Bologna matchups, while likely a doubt for Juve’s trip to San Siro to face former manager Max Allegri and AC Milan.
- Mattia Perin is considered “day-to-day” after having to be substituted at the half of Monday’s win over Genoa. And Vasilije Adžić, who was noted called up to face Genoa, is still working his way back to 100% fitness after picking up an ankle injury while on international duty with the Montenegro Under-21 squad.
- With McKennie suspended for the trip to Bergamo, Teun Koopmeienrs is expected to come into the starting lineup to fill his place. That could result in a slight formation change from Spalletti, who has previously used Koopmeiners in a three-man midfield rather than as a No. 10 like he has with McKennie.
- Jonathan David is expected to retain his spot in the starting lineup after playing from the opening whistle against Genoa on Monday.
- As was the case earlier in the week against Genoa, Lloyd Kelly is one yellow card away from having to suffer the same fate as McKennie and be forced to serve a one-game ban due to accumulation.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
For the first time in nearly two months, Michele Di Gregorio looks set to start a game in goal for Juventus.
There are very valid reasons why he’s gone so long in between starts. But what he did in his sudden appearance off the bench back on Monday could prove to be a major confidence booster for a player who was struggling amidst mounting pressure.
Or at least we hope that is the case.
With Perin still on day-to-day status, the likelihood of Di Gregorio starting in goal for the first time since Juventus’ loss to Como in which he made multiple key blunders is pretty apparent. But what happened this past Monday against Genoa also can’t be ignored — both in terms to the importance of that result, the context in which he entered the game and also just the potential impact it could have on a player who needed that exact kind of confidence boost.
He was called into action because Perin, Juventus’ starter in goal the past six weeks, got hurt right before the half. And, in quite the interesting twist, it was Di Gregorio coming to the rescue to keep the clean sheet — and the three points — intact with a massive double save. The reaction from his teammates was pretty powerful because they know what the player and, maybe more importantly, the man has been through since he lost his starting job in goal to Perin. There is congratulating a teammate on a big, game-defining kind of save, then there is the reaction that Di Gregorio got. It was one that had a lot of emotion to it besides just what happened a few seconds earlier.
But now, with Perin out, it’s about carrying over that confidence and that renewed sense of belonging with him to Bergamo. In a way, it’s exactly like a goal scorer who finally finds the back of the net after a long cold streak — you want them to take advantage of the drought ending and hopefully head off on a heater. For Di Gregorio, it’s now about making the most of this chance to play again and not repeating the same kind of mistakes that led him to losing his job in the first place.
If he does the better of those two options, then the player who made numerous big-time saves down the stretch last season will be showing his face again. And that, my friends, would be a welcome sight indeed.
MATCH INFO
When: Saturday, April 11, 2026.
Where: New Balance Arena, Bergamo, 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: TLN (Canada); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport Calcio, Sky Sport 251 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA, fuboTV (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.
