The last six-and-a-half weeks have been one of the most supremely disappointing periods of time for a Juventus fan this century.
After their incredible 4-3 win in the Derby d’Italia on Sept. 13, the Bianconeri
had failed to win another game. The eight-game winless streak was the team’s longest since 2009. The subset of the last four games was even worse: three losses and draw without scoring a single goal, the longest scoreless stretch the team had endured since 1991. For historical context, that was the year Alessandro Del Piero received his first first-team call-up — not of his Juventus career but his professional career, at Padova. He wouldn’t debut until later in the ’91-92 season after the turn of the year.
Juve were achieving historic levels of futility, and manager Igor Tudor paid with his job after Sunday’s 1-0 loss to Lazio. With a quick turnaround, Next Gen coach Massimo Brambilla had all of one full training session before having to guide the team in Wednesday’s midweek league fixture against Udinese. With Luciano Spalletti waiting in the wings — although not in attendance at the Allianz Stadium, as he was reportedly attending to a personal matter — it was Brambilla’s job to see that he could go into his new post with a little bit of momentum at his back.
Whatever Brambilla said or did, be it due to the new-manager bump or the players just feeling a little freer, Juve ended their scoring drought within five minutes, and dominated for large stretches of the game. They took 25 shots and hit the target with 11 of them. Maduka Okoye saved nine of them, many of them in quite spectacular fashion, bringing to mind games where the likes of Stefano Sorrentino or Salvatore Sirigu hulked up to frustrate the Bianconeri with save after save after save. Even more frustrating was the fact that Juve had given up their initial lead after a series of brain cramps and bad clearances allowed Udinese to tie the score in first-half stoppage time.
But the Nigerian keeper was indeed breached — three times, in fact. Two of Juve’s goals were penalties, but a goal is a goal, and three points are three points, and had Okoye not done his best Gigi Buffon impression, the margin would’ve been far wider than there 3-1 final scoreline. The victory lifted Juve to within three points of the top four and lifted a huge weight off the shoulders of players who were in desperate need of a confidence boost.
Brambilla didn’t go too far afield with his setup, but did make a few tweaks from Tudor’s setup. He was without Khéphren Thuram, who was a late addition to the injury list with a calf problem, as well as Bremer, Juan Cabal, Carlo Pinsoglio and Arkadiusz Milik. Brambilla set the team up in a 3-1-4-2 formation. Michele Di Gregorio anchored things in goal, with Pierre Kalulu, Federico Gatti, and Lloyd Kelly screening him in defense. Manuel Locatelli played in front of the back three. Andrea Cambiaso was shifted to the right wing-back spot, paired up with Filip Kostic, who made his first start league start for the club since May 2024. Kenan Yildiz and Weston McKennie played in midfield behind the strike pairing of Dusan Vlahovic and Loïs Openda.
Udinese manager Kosta Runjaic was without defender Thomas Kristensen and Iker Bravo. He countered with a 3-5-2. Okoye started behind Christian Kabasele, Oumar Solet, and Saba Goglichidze. Wing-backs Kingsley Ehizibue and Hassane Kamara bookended the midfield trio of Arthur Atta, Jakub Piotrowski, and Jesper Karlström, while Nicolò Zaniolo and Keinan Davis played up front.
Juve quickly showed that they were prepared to move the ball toward Udinese’s goal with alacrity, and within minutes of the game’s start they had earned a penalty. A good through ball from Kalulu found Openda, who squared the ball to Vlahovic. The big Serb was there to receive it, but was hauled back by Goglichidze, who then made a fool of himself protesting to referee Marco Di Bello that he had done nothing wrong despite the fact that he’d been pulling back on Vlahovic’s shirt before the striker had even touched the ball. Vlahovic stepped up and, after a headache-inducing run-up that involved no less than two changes of pace before he finally reached the ball, sent Okoye the wrong way to open the scoring.
Vlahovic turned provider a few minutes later when he put Openda through into the box, but he was forced a bit wide and fired outside of the post. The No. 9 then had another goal chalked off when McKennie strayed offside in the buildup.
By the middle stages of the first half Udinese had actually had slightly more possession, but had been kept relatively quiet offensively. Juve, on the other hand, began to gain steam after a fallow period in the middle of the half. Openda had a cross-shot deflected behind by Okoye, then Kostic hit a low rocket that took a little deflection on the way through, but Okoye managed to adjust and parry it away. He made three more saves in three minutes, including an excellent kick save on an onrushing Vlahovic after Cambiaso but him through the defense.
With every missed opportunity, a little voice in the back of the fans’ heads kept on asking if that was going to come back to bite them. The answer came in the first minute of stoppage time, when Locatelli tried to hold the ball and turn in his own half, only to be dispossessed by Piotrowski. Atta charged into the box, but the defense couldn’t clear the ball away from him. Adam Buska, who had come on for an injured Davis late in the half, had a shot blocked, and the rebound landed at the feet of Zaniolo, who shaped a feathery shot into the bottom corner to tie the score deeply against the run of play. When the half ended a few moments later, the fans booed the team off the pitch for the lapse as a sense of dread kicked in.
That dread deepened in the opening minutes of the second period, when Goglichidze, searching for his first professional goal, got his head to a cross after a free kick play and forced Di Gregorio to fly to parry it behind. The ensuing corner flew through the box right to the 21-year-old Georgian, but he blasted over.
That scare was enough for Juve to start clamping down again. In the 53rd minute Openda’s back-heel flick from four yards was blocked behind, and on the ensuing corner chaos reigned in the box, with Yildiz, Vlahovic, and Openda all seeing shots blocked from close range. Okoye stopped Openda after the Belgium international fired low, then Vlahovic came inches from a second with a long-range shot that whistled past the bottom corner. In the 66th minute a neat passing sequence saw McKennie tee up Kalulu from 18 yards, but Okoye went airborne to push it behind.
The ensuing corner, however, prompted a collective sigh of relief from the stands. After Cambiaso’s initial delivery was rejected, McKennie got the ball back to him, and he hung a high cross to the far post. Gatti rose to meet it there. Okoye got his hand on this one, too — but Gatti had gotten so much power on his header that the keeper’s best efforts were finally beaten.
Okoye stayed busy as Juve pushed to put the game away. He denied Yildiz in the 70th minute, then watched the young Turk bang one off the post. But in the last few minutes of normal time the home side dropped back, defending their one-goal lead. It very nearly cost them in the last few seconds before stoppage time, when Vakoun Bayo whistled a header a whisker wide of the far post.
Chastened, Juve looked once again to kill the game off as five minutes of added time flashed on the board. Yildiz should’ve had things settled when he intercepted a bad back pass, but he blazed over instead of using the support of Jonanthan David on his right. Less than a minute later, Yildiz and Goglichidze both went after a ball on the left side of the box, with Yildiz going down in the challenge. Initially, Di Bello called a foul against Yildiz, but the protestations of Yildiz and his teammates were followed by a long VAR check, which finally called Di Bello to the monitor for review. That took almost as much time, before Di Bello returned and announced that Yildiz had indeed won the ball, with Goglichidze making contact with him a split second late. Yildiz picked himself off the ground and stood over the penalty himself, eventually taking the exact same shot Vlahovic did earlier in the game—low to the shooter’s left—while sending Okoye the other way to seal things.
The lengthy stoppage pushed the game to almost 100 minutes, and Okoye made one last intervention when David fired a shot at the near post in the closing seconds. But for all the keeper’s efforts, Juventus had finally taken home a win for the first time in 40 days — with any luck providing the Spalletti era with some momentum to ride.
