We sat here all of two weeks ago wondering how much help Juventus could get from the upcoming opposition that fourth-place Como had on the schedule. Little did we know that not only would Juve win both of those first two games out of the March international break, but also see Como suddenly lose any sort of form that they had going into the break.
The door has been left wide open for Juventus to take control of the race for fourth place — and that is again the case this weekend. And due in large part
to another big piece of help from an unlikely kind of source.
Juventus hit the middle fixture of their huge three-game stretch that sees them facing their toughest opposition remaining in the 2025-26 season. After grinding out a 1-0 win in Bergamo last weekend and seeing Como fall a little more than 24 hours later to ensure the Bianconeri would finish the weekend in fourth place, Bologna will make the trip to Turin to see just how much Luciano Spalletti’s squad can take advantage of another big slice of help. Last week it came from league-leading Inter Milan, which isn’t a huge surprise knowing that they’re on the brink of clinching the Scudetto (which is gross). On Friday it was … Sassuolo?!?! Yep, Sassuolo!
So now, as Juventus take the field on Sunday night against Federico Bernardeschi and a Bologna squad that was just bounced from the Europa League by Aston Villa in a blowout kind of fashion, the Bianconeri could extend their advantage over Como to five points with five games to play with a win.
Hell, if AC Milan continue on their recent downward trajectory and somehow drop points to soon-to-be Serie B-bound Hellas Verona this weekend, Juventus could very well be within striking distance of third place.
All of this didn’t seem possible a couple of weeks ago as we watched Italy fail to qualify for another World Cup and we were all both mad about the national team but also trying to do the math about how Juventus could try and make it all happen and get back into the top four before the season is over.
Instead, it took them all of a couple of weeks because they have won both of their games and gotten about as much help from the direct rivals’ opposition as they could have dreamed to get.
Seriously, just think about it for a second. Juventus were three points behind Como just two weeks ago. Now, with a win over Bologna, the script will have completely flipped and they will be five points ahead of Como. Same goes for the distance between Juventus and Roma after the latter played to a 1-1 draw against Atalanta at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday night.
You can’t draw it up any better than that. With a win over Bologna at the Allianz, the scope of the entire race for fourth place will have changed dramatically. And luckily for us, that is the luxury (or maybe a different word if you want to use one) that Spalletti now has. His team is in the driver’s seat — and rather suddenly, too.
This is Juventus’ chance to not just get a nice advantage over Como and Roma, but to really give themselves some much-needed breathing room entering a challenging final five weeks of the season. Just because they will be done with this big three-game stretch a week from now doesn’t mean that the schedule will suddenly become a simple matter in which the final month isn’t challenging.
But it’s impossible to ignore what kind of opportunity that Juve have in front of them come Sunday night. To go from three points out of the Champions League qualification and needing a ton of help to having the chance to be five points up over your closest competition in the span of about two weeks? That’s wild — and something I didn’t think would be possible at any point of this home stretch, let alone in this short a period time.
To do that, though, it will come against a Bologna squad that we’re not really sure what kind of shape they will be following their European ouster just a couple of days ago. Will Bologna look like the squad that have won six of their last eight Serie A fixtures? Or is the Bologna team that rolls into Turin will be one that has a massive hangover after their 4-0 loss to Aston Villa in the Europa League?
Those are two very different kinds of Bologna sides. We know Vincenzo Italian is a good manager. He has shown it at Fiorentina and now at Bologna with a Coppa Italia last season as proof of that. But they are also a team that heads to Turin to face Juventus all of 72 hours after they were punted from Europe by a 7-1 aggregate scoreline. For a team that doesn’t have a ton of European experience outside of the last two years, it’s hard to say just how much that might carry over back to domestic competition.
By the way, five of those six wins over the last eight games that Bologna have recorded, they’ve come by a one-goal margin. That is a team grinding out results against both mid-table teams as well as teams in or around the relegation zone.
Also: Five of the last six meetings between Juventus and Bologna have ended in a draw. That’s … a lot!
Another draw against Bologna won’t be the end of the world, but it wouldn’t be the full maximization of the opportunity that is now at hand. They could very well be a team that is hitting a decent late-season stride at the exact time in which they need it. You know Spalletti has seen the results the last couple of nights from his office at Continassa and realize the opportunity his team now has.
We will see if this Juve team can actually take advantage of it. In previous seasons it might be one that they’ve missed. But they’ve basically had the red carpet rolled out for them over the last couple of weeks with all the help from other teams they’ve gotten. No matter if it’s a big win or a slim one, they just gotta keep winning.
TEAM NEWS
- Luciano Spalletti did not hold a pre-match press conference on Saturday, so we don’t know the official status of a lot of the question marks — namely Kenan Yildiz and Khephren Thuram — we have entering Sunday night’s game with Bologna.
- We do know that Yildiz has reportedly trained with the rest of the group after previously doing so separately all week as he deals with some sort of knee inflamation.
- Same goes for Thuram, who Spalletti said was also dealing with an issue during Saturday night’s win over Atalanta. Thuram returned to training with the group on Saturday after working separately earlier in the week.
- The Juventus injury list was almost non-existent coming out of the international break a couple of weeks ago. Once there was zero players on the injury list, now we have five players out against Bologna: Mattia Perin, Dusan Vlahovic, Arek Milik (of course), Juan Cabal and Vasilije Adžić.
- Considering there are very few striker options available and Loïs Openda basically a non-existent option in Spalletti’s mind these days, Jonathan David is expected to return to the starting lineup after a very strong showing off the bench last weekend in Bergamo.
- Two Juventus players, Gleison Bremer and Lloyd Kelly, are a yellow card away from having to serve a one-game suspension. Seeing as who is next on the schedule, this will be an important thing to remember as Juventus takes on Bologna.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
On a couple of occasions during last weekend’s trip to Bergamo, we heard mentions that Kenan Yildiz wasn’t 100% healthy. What then took place was a very un-Yildiz-like performance, with a rare substitution before the 60th minute for a player who has been so important to so much of what has gone right for Juve this season.
As we know, there was a reason besides just an off day behind it.
So now we see what a week of more rest than usual and a specialized training schedule, Yildiz will be available for Sunday night’s matchup with Bologna. We don’t know to what extent just yet, but this is where we can speculate a little bit. That’s where the fun is, right?
For all we know, it will be Jérémie Boga starting on the left wing of Luciano Spalletti’s 4-2-3-1 setup against Bologna. That is the logical option if Yildiz is deemed to not to be ready to head straight back into the starting lineup just yet after spending much of the past week training separately from the group.
But let’s say, for now, he is. Let’s say Yildiz is going to be starting like some Italian media outlets are thinking will be the case on Sunday at the Allianz.
(Heck, it could still be applicable if Yildiz comes off the bench. Mainly because it’s Yildiz, right? Yeah, exactly.)
It’s very simple when it comes to Yildiz after the work he’s done to try and get in a better condition than he was a week ago: How does he look? Will he still look like a somewhat limited player who isn’t going to make it to the hour mark? Or will he be more like the player who has been so good for much of this season?
In the bigger picture, the more this knee issue lingers, the more it hurts Juventus. The sooner Yildiz can get to about as closr to 100% as he can at this point of the season because nobody is probably 100% with all these minutes in their legs in mid-April (unless you don’t ever play like Openda), the better it is for Juventus.
To put a bow on all of this: Can you imagine the sight of Yildiz going up against Joao Mario, though? Just think about that. We know how much of a defensive liability that little Portuguese fullback/wingback can be. We know what Yildiz can do against fairly good defenders. That would be so much fun to watch take place. So please be healthy, Kenan, for this simple possibility alone.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, April 19, 2026.
Where: Allianz Stadium, 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: Fox Deportes (United States); TLN (Canada); TNT Sports 1 (United Kingdom).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA, fuboTV, Fox One, Fox Sports app, FoxSports.com (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.
