On Dec. 7, 2025, Luciano Spalletti headed back to the stadium in which he led Napoli to one of their biggest triumphs in club history. It was easily the biggest fixture Spalletti was a part during his then-brief tenure as Juve manager, with the matchup between the defending champions and their former coach just part — albeit a large one — of the many narratives heading into the showdown in southern Italy.
Forty-nine days later, Juventus and Napoli meet again.
This time around, it’s on Juve’s home turf.
And it comes at a time in which both teams are coming off very different kinds of results and performances midweek in the Champions League.
Juventus get a shot at revenge against the defending Serie A champions less than two months after Napoli handed the Bianconeri their first loss under Luciano Spalletti. Since then, Juve have lost just one other fixture — yeah, we won’t talk much more about what happened last weekend — and have gotten within striking distance of Antonio Conte’s squad. If not for that loss to Cagliari, Juventus would have entered this weekend’s showdown in Turin with the chance to jump over Napoli in the Serie A standings. But because of it, Juve and Napoli are separated by four points in third and fifth place, respectively, entering Matchday 22 with the chance to take advantage of this head-to-head matchup as well as AC Milan heading to Rome to face Roma just a short time after the final whistle sounds at the Allianz Stadium.
It’s a big weekend with four out of the top five facing each other. That comes after there was a short hope Friday night when Inter were trailing Pisa at the San Siro by a couple of goals. Then the Serie A leaders absolutely steamrolled the worst team in the league and scored six unanswered goals to extend their advantage over Milan and Napoli to six and nine points, respectively. (Not nice because it’s Inter.)
A lot like the first time when these two teams played last month, Napoli are extremely shorthanded. As much as having Romelu Lukaku back in the fold is a boost for Conte, the injury list in Naples is still extremely long — and with a host of major names still present. Napoli will be without Kevin De Bruyne, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, Billy Gilmour, Amir Rrahmani, David Neres and Matteo Politano. And there might be a new name on that list, with goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic reportedly a doubt after suffering a muscle injury in training before the team left for Turin. They’ve also shipped out summer signings Noa Lang and Lorenzo Lucca on loan deals within the past couple of days, meaning the limited depth they had is now even less plentiful.
That is far from the ideal situation for Conte to try and deal with.
Then again, Napoli were dealing with plenty of injuries when Juve headed to Naples seven weeks ago and that is something they were able to overcome when they claimed a 2-1 win over Spalletti’s squad.
That, of course, had to do a decent amount with how Spalletti approached things from the onset — playing Kenan Yildiz as a false nine, seeing it backfire, watching Napoli take a lead and then never fully being able to recover from a brutal first-half performance despite Yildiz’s best efforts.
Spalletti, thankfully, hasn’t repeated those same tactical mistakes from early December as Juve have put together a nice run of form following the loss to Napoli. And thanks to it, they’ve been able to get close to the top four, if not actually be in the top four for a few days even with all of the teams in front of them being so compact. We’ll just go ahead and note this piece of info from Juventus’ website ahead of Napoli’s visit to Turin this weekend:
Since Luciano Spalletti’s arrival as coach, the Bianconeri have picked up 24 points in Serie A — more than Napoli’s 22, and bettered only by Milan (28) and Inter (31).
So you gotta believe there might be a little shade and purpose in pointing that Juve have two more points than Napoli does since Spalletti, the man who ended a three-decade title drought in Naples, joined the most successful club in Italy. But it also speaks to the fact that Spalletti has righted the ship at Juventus. That is even with the loss to Napoli. That is even with the loss to Cagliari this past weekend.
And facing Napoli, no matter how many players they currently have injured, will be a test of that.
More than it was seven weeks ago. This is a chance for Juventus, on their home turf, to get three hugely valuable points against a team that is four points in front of them in the Serie A standings. With Como absolutely stomping on Torino on Saturday, Juve will take the field on Sunday in sixth place. They beat Napoli, and they’re right back on the tail of Conte’s squad as they then tune into happens at the Olimpico on Sunday night.
This is another one of those weekends where there’s a chance for a good amount of help to come. But Juventus must first take care of their own business before thinking of all that. And against a team that they lost to just 49 days ago.
TEAM NEWS
- Neither Spalletti nor Conte held pre-match press conferences on Saturday, therefore we’re just going off what the Italian media might be telling us when it comes to player availability.
- We do know of the three players who are definitely not going to be taking part in the second meeting with Napoli: Dusan Vlahovic, Daniele Rugani and Arek Milik.
- It appears the only real starting lineup question mark Spalletti might have is between Francisco Conceição and Fabio Miretti. That, of course, would mean a different starting position in the attacking trio behind the striker in Spalletti’s 4-2-3-1 for Weston McKennie depending on who Spalletti decides to go with.
- Juventus have kept six clean sheets in their last nine Serie A matchups. That’s nice.
- Manuel Locatelli, as he has been for a few weeks now, is one yellow card away from suspension.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
Big games call for big players to potentially do big player things. There is no bigger player on this Juventus squad right now than the young No. 10 who will have every single person in the Allianz Stadium on their edge of their seat every time he is on the ball come Sunday night.
Yeah, it’s exactly who you think I am talking about.
We are sitting in late-January and Kenan Yildiz has already equaled his number of goals from the 2024-25 season. In that year, we saw the makings of a special player. This season, that has only continued, seemingly looking like he’s on the cusp of stardom for a Juventus team that is desperate for that kind of building block.
Now he gets another crack at Napoli. You know, the same club in which Yildiz gave Juve a glimmer of hope against after such a brutal opening 45 minutes the first time around last month in Naples.
Yildiz has gotten past the dip in form he had at the beginning of Spalletti’s tenure as manager. You look at what he is doing right now, you’ll find very few instances of when he hasn’t had some sort of goal contribution. Let’s just go ahead and go back to the same Juventus website post that we referenced earlier:
Kenan Yildiz has had a hand in 101 shots taken this season in Serie A — 60 of his own and 41 chances created — fewer than only Nico Paz’s 117. Yildiz has also hit the post more than any other player in the league this season (five times), as well as being the league’s most-fouled player in the final third of the pitch.
All of that is good, right?
Napoli will be far from full strength when Conte’s squad walks out of the tunnel at the Allianz on Sunday. They will have players starting who don’t normally start. They will be missing important players in just about every position group there is. They could very well be fielding a goalkeeper who lost his starting job earlier this season and hasn’t played since September.
You know who likes to take advantage of those situations and create some (good) chaos on the field? That would be Kenan Yildiz, who has shown plenty of times already in his young career that he can certainly rise to the occasion during big games like this one most definitely is.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026.
Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 6 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 5 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 12 p.m. Eastern time, 11:45 a.m. Central time, 9 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TLN (Canada); Sky Sports Uno, Sky Sport Calcio, Sky Sport 251 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, DAZN USA, Amazon Prime Video (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italia, Sky Go Italia (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.
