As simple as it sounds, it feels rather appropriate to state the following: What a difference all of seven days makes.
This time last weekend, Juventus were sitting in third place and completely in control of their own destiny when it came to Champions League qualification. But thanks to their 2-0 loss to. Fiorentina, that destiny is non-existent, and instead in the hands of others on top of the fact of Juve needing to do exactly the opposite of what happened against La Viola at the Allianz Stadium.
So now Juventus must face the consequences of their actions. And in this case, that means they need to pull a complete miracle off if they want to be in the Champions League next season.
Juve were in third place seven days ago. Now, as they get ready to face Torino in the Derby della Mole that will end the 2025-26 season on Sunday night, they will take the field in sixth place and needing multiple results to go their way if they want to avoid a fate that involves the Europa League next year. As much as Juve manager Luciano Spalletti saw his team get plenty of help to jump back into the top four in the weeks following the March international break, they will need that to be super-charged on Sunday if they want to get back into fourth place.
Juve will have to try and do it without their best player, who is injured.
They will have to try and do it without their best defender (on paper), who is suspended.
They will have to try and do it without their No. 9 who has started the last couple of games after coming back from injury, who is now injured once again.
The fact is, after having their chances of making the Champions League be just short of 80%, according to the Opta supercomputer, entering last weekend’s game against Fiorentina, they’re now down to all of about 15%.
That just shows how much things have swung out of Juventus’ favor with one loss at the worst possible time.
Of course, it’s not just one result against Fiorentina on Matchday 37 as to why Juventus are in position. It’s the culmination of a season worth of dropped points against provincial sides in bottom half of the table. A couple of those results go Juve’s way and Spalletti’s feeling a lot better about Champions League qualification. Hell, if they turn two or three of those draws or losses into wins and they’re already qualified and probably even or ahead of second-place Napoli.
But the reality is that they’re not. And now they’re hoping for a hail mary on the final day of the season.
The odds say it’s highly unlikely. The mind also says it’s highly unlikely.
Then you factor in the simple notion that, a lot like Fiorentina seven days earlier, Torino would love nothing more than to crush all remaining hope Juve have of getting into the Champions League and
“I’m expecting a performance worthy of what has happened this week, and of the level of importance that this game demands,” Spalletti said at his pre-match press conference. “It’s a derby, so I expect a reaction. We don’t regret the points dropped in the games wherein we put in a performance but fell short, but we regret those in which we didn’t manage to show our best selves, those games in which we didn’t build the kind of play that had distinguished us for so long.”
That’s all well and go, but now Juventus’ fate is out of their hands after it being the complete opposite for much of the last six weeks.
Plus, there’s also this: Torino haven’t lost a home fixture since mid-February. For a club that’s sitting 12th in the table entering Sunday night’s season finale, that is a pretty good thing to boast about. So on top of this being a derby between city rivals, you now also have the home team with a nice run of form in front of their home crowd. And the cherry on top of it all for Torino will be a Juventus team coming over to the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino with a short-handed squad down some of their biggest names and most important players.
Like Fiorentina, Torino has absolutely nothing to play for … other than crushing Juventus’ Champions League hopes. You think they would love to do that? Of course they would.
The Derby della Mole is never simple. It’s never an easy kind of three points to try and get. Now you factor all of this into it? Sure feels like something good is brewing for Sunday night — and it doesn’t feel all that good.
TEAM NEWS
- The big news heading into the weekend: Juventus star youngster Kenan Yildiz picked up a calf strain in training and will miss the Derby della Mole. Yildiz, who was already dealing with knee inflammation, now has a second ailment to try and recover from ahead of joining up with Turkiye for the World Cup in North America this summer.
- Reports coming out of Italy on Saturday night said that Dusan Vlahovic is also a doubt to face Torino after suffering from muscle fatigue during training earlier in the day. It would, in a weird kind of way, be a fitting potential end to Vlahovic’s injury-filled 2025-26 season with Juventus.
- Juventus will also be without central defender Gleison Bremer after he picked up a yellow card in last weekend’s loss to Fiorentina, thus forcing him to serve a one-game suspension for accumulation.
- With Bremer suspended, Federico Gatti is expected to take his place in the starting lineup. (More on him in a few short paragraphs and/or bullet points.)
- The other two players out injured are the two who have been out injured (albeit called up last week out of solidarity) the last few weeks: Juan Cabal and Arek Milik.
- Emil Holm could return to the starting lineup if Spalletti decides to go with a 3-4-2-1 formation. That would also allow Weston McKennie — who has done his general thing of “playing in a lot of different positions” lately — to shift in centrally and play alongside Manuel Locatelli.
- That is also a result of Khephren Thuram still being hampered by fitness issues this week. Thuram, who has trained individually for much of the week, is not expected to start against Torino.
- No changes in goal are expected despite another weekend that included Michele Di Gregorio allowing a soft goal in the first shot on target by the opposing team.
- Juventus has lost only one of their last 41 matchups against Torino.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
This could very well be the last game at Juventus for a good amount of players. But there’s one player that, for me, stands out from the group because of what the Derby della Mole has always meant since he arrived at Juve after his meteoric rise from the lower levels of Italian football to the country’s most successful club.
You can probably guess who I’m getting at.
Plus, look at that luscious hair he has atop his head now.
To many of us, he’s Fred Cats. Legally, it’s Federico Gatti. Either way, he is a guy who has become a reserve player over the last few months under Spalletti and has been heavily linked with an exit to somewhere else in Serie A (or even the Premier League) over these past few weeks as his playing time has become rather sparse.
But with Bremer out, it’s Cats time again.
And agains the club that basically all of his family roots for? This has narrative written all over it.
But it’s also a game in which Juventus need Gatti to be at his grittiest, grind-it-out and show-us-your-grinta best. Juventus need the win if they want any shot of pulling off a last-second miracle and making the Champions League. That translates to a defense needing to not do what they’ve done so often this season and not allow a goal on the first shot on target an opponent has taken in the game. It’s happened so often this season that you almost lose count of how many times it’s occurred, yet at the same time you can’t forget what the actual number is.
If there ever was a time for Gatti to Hulk up and be the guy that looked like he could be a solid piece to the puzzle over the last couple of years, it’s Sunday night. We have no idea where he will be playing a few months from now, but he’s still a Juventus player and a necessary one with Bremer suspended against Torino.
Maybe, just maybe, we get one last Fred Cats stunner with Juventus. And against Torino, too? That would be fun.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, May 24, 2026
Where: Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino, Turin, 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: TNT Sports 3 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport Calcio, Sky Sport 252 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA (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.
