The last time Juventus jumped back into the Champions League, they were coming off an encouraging debut under their new manager where you could hopefully see them build off those positives that were displayed
just a a few short days earlier.
This time around, as Luciano Spalletti gets set for his second adventure into Europe with Juventus, the same can’t really be said about what Juventus did over the weekend.
Not exactly the kind of thing you want to see when you’re basically entering must-win territory in the Champions League, is it?
But that’s what looking Juventus right in the face as they head to frigid Norway to face Bodø/Glimt on Matchday 5 of the Champions League league phase on Tuesday night. By the time things kick off at the Aspmyra Stadion, temperatures will be well below freezing. There’s a chance of snow throughout the day on Tuesday. The conditions will be part of the narrative no matter if the result ends up being good or bad for Juventus, as will that fact that Bodø/Glimt play on synthetic turf because of the elements that their location provides this time of year. But even with that, Juventus are in a situation in Europe in which their previous results this season in the league phase have now resulted in their players saying things like this:
“Our margin for error is almost zero. We have to get points and win this match .”
Those are the words of Juventus fullback/wingback Andrea Cambiaso during Monday night’s pre-match conference after the squad arrived in Norway. And you know what? He’s not wrong. He’s actually right on the money.
Because Juventus have just three points from their first four Champions League league phase fixtures and currently sit outside of one of the play-off spots, any further dropped points over the remaining four league phase fixtures and Luciano Spalletti’s squad is pretty much up against it. Like Cambiaso said, the room for error is basically gone now and they have to win these last four league phase fixtures to ensure that they will be in the play-off round. That’s just what the simple math tells us if we’re going off what the first season of the league phase taught us 12 months ago.
So, if that means Juventus need 11 or 12 points to get a play-off spot, then that means Juve need at least three wins just to get there. (And, as we remember from last season, Juve was on the backend of the play-off spots with 12 points, so that has to be the most logical target to try and get to once again this year.)
The problem is, the way this team is playing these days, it’s hard to see them getting to that 12-point figure.
The jokes about if Spalletti is actually manager or if Igor Tudor is still around have been going around the for the better part of the last two days since Juve’s 1-1 draw with Fiorentina. You can see why there is some truth to it, though — the formation hasn’t changed despite everybody waiting for Spalletti to make the switch to what we think is his preferred setup, the change for the better hasn’t been all too noticeable and the same problems that hampered Tudor for a good portion of his seven months in charge are still around despite the managerial change.
(Hmmmmm … makes you think it’s more than just a manager thing, doesn’t it?)
But the one saving grace for Juventus to try and make something out of the UCL league phase is that their four remaining opponents are far from what they faced in the first half of the European fixture list. Bodø/Glimt enter Tuesday night’s matchup in 29th place and have just two points in four league phase games. They’ve got 20th-place Pafos up after that. There’s also a Benfica side that’s 35th and Monaco in 19th. Those are four incredibly winnable games and ones a club like Juventus (regardless of its current state) should win or at least have a good chance of winning.
The schedule has given Spalletti a path into the play-off round. The first of those fixtures is Tuesday night in the freezing cold of Norway, but it’s still a path in which Juventus can hopefully use to their advantage. If Spalletti’s words of “To get better, we have to go through difficult matches” ring true, then maybe we’ll get to see a team much improved from Saturday night in Florence.
Or maybe we’ll just see more of the same — which certainly won’t get Juve into the top 24.
TEAM NEWS
- After not playing in Saturday’s draw with Fiorentina, Federico Gatti was not called up for the trip to Norway. Instead, Gatti will be watching his teammates take on Bodø/Glimt from the comfort (and warmth) of his own home back in Turin.
- The other injured players not called to face Bodø/Glimt are not a surprise: Gleison Bremer, Daniele Rugani, and Carlo Pinsoglio. (Arek Milik is, of course, also injured but not part of the Champions League squad.)
- With Gatti out injured, that leaves Spalletti with just natural center backs on the squad to face Bodø/Glimt: Lloyd Kelly and Pierre Kalulu.
- When it comes to his starting lineup, Spalletti did say “there will be some changes” as compared to what we saw against Fiorentina over the weekend. However, he added that “I wouldn’t say it’s a complete overhaul.” So if you were hoping for just that, sounds like it isn’t happening.
- Spalletti called the conditions and the turf field in Bodø as “a disadvantage.”
- A key to facing Bodø/Glimt, according to Spalletti? “We can’t leave any spaces inside, because they’re a very strong team and know how to play narrow,” he said.
- Tuesday night will be the first time that Juventus and Bodø/Glimt have met in a European competition.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
There are a lot of Juventus players who aren’t playing like they have either earlier this season or during the 2024-25 campaign. That includes some of Juve’s most important and most talented members of the squad, too.
And in a much-maligned midfield that continues to make much of a mark on games, Juventus certainly needs their second generation of Thuram to kick things back into gear after yet another showing in which he played a key role in the goal Fiorentina scored and just didn’t make much of a mark this past weekned.
So let’s just go ahead and talk about somebody other than a striker in this section for a change after these past few weeks.
There was so much excitement about Khephren Thuram’s first season in Turin. He looked like a future building block for a team that for so long had failed to truly address its midfield struggles. As much as the club had spent on the midfield to try and right the wrongs of previous transfer campaigns, Thuram proved to be the only one that had immediate success in Turin.
So far, his second season has not lived up to what he did in the first.
Thuram is struggling to replicate the kind of form that he had during his debut season with Juventus. That seems fairly obvious. His impact on the game — at least in a positive way — hasn’t been in the same kind of as we saw under Thiago Motta and then Tudor. Those explosive runs forward we saw from Thuram don’t feel as plentiful and as frequent as they have been. And, above all, the overall level in which he’s playing at isn’t the same as 12 months ago.
So what are Juventus to do?
With how this roster is built, they’re betting a lot on Thuram making a step forward and becoming a very good midfielder. Unfortunately, he hasn’t gotten there yet — and his form has not hel;ped that very simple fact. Would things improve if he’s no longer played in a double pivot? Maybe, but until Spalletti actually goes to a 4-3-3 or something else with his formation, it’s hard to bank on anything.
Juventus need Thuram to be the version of himself from last season. They need him to snap out of the mistakes that lead to opponents’ goals like we saw over the weekend against Fiorentina. They just need him to be better on the whole. (Which, I know, is something you can say about a lot of players on this Juve squad.)
MATCH INFO
When: Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025.
Where: Aspmyra Stadion, Bodø, Norway.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time in Norway, Italy and across Europe, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 2 p.m. Central time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TNT Sports 5 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); Amazon Prime Video (United Kingdom); Sky Go Italia, Amazon Prime Video (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.
