When the first day of November arrives every year, it’s also a day to celebrate at Juventus — it’s the Old Lady’s birthday, with the grand and most successful Italian club turning 128 years old in 2025.
The catch this season is that Juve’s birthday comes on the same day in which Luciano Spalletti made his debut as the club’s new manager after Igor Tudor was fired at the beginning of the work week.
How did it all go?
Well, a pretty good start from somebody who also has Nov. 1 as a birthday.
Less than two minutes into Spalletti’s first game, Juventus already found themselves in front against one of the biggest surprises of the 2025-26 season to date, newly-promoted Cremonese. It was the birthday boy Filip Kostic ending a goal drought that spanned two years and scoring one of the quickest goals away from home from a Juventus player since these types of things have been counted, according to Opta. Throw in the guy playing on the opposite wing of Kostic, Andrea Cambiaso, scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal midway through the second half and Juventus doing some classic hang-on-for-dear-life survival to clinch the 2-1 win over Cremonese on Saturday night to give Spalletti the win in his debut and record back-to-back victories for just the second time this season.
Of course, these two wins in the span of four days have come under two different managers, both of which coming after Tudor was fired on Monday. First it was Massimo Brambilla dropping in for a couple of days and keeping the seat warm for the more permanent manager, who ended up being Spalletti.
Both Brambilla and Spalletti had all of one training session before coaching their respective debuts on the Juve sideline this week. One manager changed things up both tactically and lineup-wise — and you can probably guess which was which just considering each coach’s situation and how long they’re going to be running training sessions at Continassa the rest of this season. That, of course, was to be expected. Brambilla was the bridge to Spalletti, and the latter is somebody who will hopefully be around for a few years beyond the completion of the 2025-26 campaign.
Was Spalletti’s debut perfect? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Nor should we have expected it to be simply because of why he’s here. This is a Juventus team that needs a lot of work, and it’s still a question of if somebody who’s even as experienced as Spalletti can be the one to get that done with this current roster. The first half was a much better overall showing than the second half from Juventus. Some of that had to do with the early goal allowing Juve to really try and go for it while knowing full well they were ahead. Some of it also had to do with some of the changes Spalletti made after the break that didn’t exactly work out well. (Attacking changes with a 2-0 lead? Knowing full well how this Juve team can protect a lead? Not so sure about that one, Luciano.)
But, most importantly, Juventus got the win.
And let’s face it, in their current state, Juve just needs to string a few wins together as Spalletti settles in to life in Turin and actually has the chance to put his first stamp on this team.
They did that on Saturday night. It’s what is hopefully the first of many wins under Spalletti.
Compared to how they looked all of six days earlier against a Lazio side that was basically daring them to score after taking the lead, it’s a step in the right direction to hopefully start to turn this season around. It’s not a big step, but it’s a step forward rather than what was happening under Tudor.
And for a team that hadn’t won in nearly seven weeks, getting a pair of wins within the span of four days does feel a whole lot better than an eight-game winless run that ended up costing Tudor his job.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- He may be 66 years old, but man, Spalletti can still absolutely rock a suit. That man has style in droves.
- Also, that nonchalant reaction to Kostic’s goal was pretty amusing.
- And casually strolling out of the tunnel right as the second half is kicking off? That’s also pretty amusing. Only somebody like Spalletti he has some cool to his managerial game can do that in his first game in charge at a new club.
- Of course, we also got the tactical and lineup choices from Spalletti that surprised us as well. That’s probably going to be the case for at least a few weeks as he figures out what to truly do with this team and the players at his disposal.
- Ah, yes. Facing a team that has Emil Audero in goal. How sweet is that jawline of his still? So dashing.
- Oh, right. Cremonese is the team with a Mussolini on the roster (and in the staring lineup!) this season. What could possibly go wrong there?
- Federico Gatti getting muscled out of a 50-50 challenge by a 38-year-old striker who has only been in Italy for a couple of months. Not a great look there, Cats.
- I mean, Jamie Vardy scoring against Juventus in the year 2025? Really now?
- But Vardy is Vardy and will forever be Vardy as long as he’s playing. He’s scored so many damn goals like the one he did against Juventus during his time in England. He’s out here counting how many seconds Michele Di Gregorio had the ball in his hands while also standing right next to him and barely giving him any room to actually kick the ball upfield. That’s just Vardy being Vardy, folks. He is an agent of chaos if there ever was one in this game.
- Speaking of strikers, Dusan Vlahovic … what the hell has gotten into you, my friend?
- Maybe he sees the January transfer window two months away and the window to negotiate with his next team approaching and he’s starting to ramp things up. It sure would be nice if he had played like this on a more consistent basis during his early days with Juventus. But hey, let’s just ride this change for the better as long as we can and maybe it turns into an extended run of good form. That sure would help Spalletti out as some of the other strikers not named Kenan Yildiz continue to struggle.
- Still waiting for Loïs Openda to show the RB Leipzig version of himself compared to this current one. Maybe some consistent playing time will do him some good.
- Same goes for Jonathan David, of course. But i Openda is going to be partnered with Vlahovic more often than not, getting consistent playing time for JD will be a little harder to come by.
- Guessing a lot of you didn’t have Teun Koopmeiners playing as part of Juve’s back three against Cremonese. I know I didn’t!
- But hey, it’s a surprise by Spalletti right out of the gate that seemed to work out quite well. I mean, he didn’t get toasted by Vardy like one of Juve’s natural central defenders did, so there’s that. I say that in jest, but it is true as well. Koopmeiners had much more to do defensively with this new role — which, by the way, I am not expecting to be a permanent one — but it also played to some of his strengths. That is something Spalletti talked about in his introductory press conference when it comes to Koopmeiners, and this was proof of that. Now we just gotta see if he can actually do it as a midfielder next time around.
- Andrea Cambiaso back???? That sure would be nice.
- Again, Kostic scoring a goal for Juventus in 2025 is just something I definitely did not have on my bingo card. Yet for the second straight game, he played pretty dang well — and that’s maybe one of the more pleasant developments to come out of these back-to-back wins no matter who the opposition is.
- For the record, that was just too close at the end. You’re up 2-0, close it out from there and keep Cremonese off the scoreboard. A clean sheet would have been a very nice cherry on top for Spalletti in his debut.
- Then again, if Juve keep the clean sheet, then we probably don’t get Spalletti losing it on the sideline in the closing minutes of stoppage time. So, you give something up, but you can something in return, I guess.
- First game under Spalletti and Manuel Locatelli had a really nice game. Much more of that, please.
- Khephren Thuram looking more like the version of himself from last season with some o those runs forward? Yeah, more of that as well, please.
- Good game from Weston McKennie. You can probably guess what I’m going to say next based on the last few bullet points, so we’ll just assume that you do.
- Not feeling completely depressed about the state of Juventus following a weekend fixture? Oh wow, I’ve missed this kind of feeling. Onward we go. Let’s put a winning streak together, Luciano.
