For pretty much all of the 30 or so minutes following Nick Woltemade tying things up against Celta Vigo on Thursday night, it looked like Juventus were going do what they’ve done a lot of under Luciano Spalletti — pull even but not actually go ahead. Juve may have threatened the Celta Vigo goal a lot more than they did in the opening 45 minutes, but it’s not like they were looking a that much more dangerous when it came to getting a go-ahead goal.
Then, virtually out of nowhere, Randal Kolo Muani
did just as he had done over the weekend.
Cross in at the back post, header where he’s unmarked, the rest is history.
This time around, it was Kolo Muani getting on the end of an inch-perfect cross from Andrea Cambiaso. And unlike over the weekend when Kolo Muani’s goal salvaged a point away from home against Cagliari, this time around the Frenchman’s goal put Juventus ahead in the 92nd minute and stun Celta Vigo at the Estadio Abanca Balaídos in a 2-1 win that didn’t look all that possible with how the Bianconeri played for much of the night. The win kept Juve atop the Europa League league phase standings — a place that they can occupy mainly because of their 5-0 win on the opening day of the competition last month.
But it’s a win — and a win is nice to see again regardless of how they played on the whole simply because of how things went over the weekend.
This team is still struggling for large swaths of games, and Spalletti’s lineup that was heavily rotated certainly looked vulnerable against a Celta Vigo side that was missing some of their best weapons up front. Even then, Juve’s defense looked stretched, made potentially massive errors and walked that fine line between bending and completely snapping in half as they broke.
It wasn’t until Woltemade leveled things up in the 58th minute off a massive Marcos Alonso mistake at the back and then Spalletti shoring things up in his own defense with the introduction of Gleison Bremer and Jhon Lucumí until things started to turn for the better. Things didn’t massively improve, but Juve woke up in some respects and that was reflective in how they played on both ends of the field.
After the introduction of Bremer and Lucumí for Federico Gatti and Lloyd Kelly, Celta Vigo had all of three shots — none of which were on goal.
On the other end, it’s the goal that stands out, of course, but Juve were certainly testing things and getting close before Kolo Muani put his head on the ball and snuck the shot through Celta Vigo goalkeeper Ionuț Radu’s legs. (Which, for a former Inter player, is the best outcome in which we could have imagined.) Kolo Muani’s goal didn’t come long after Nico González came extremely close to getting the go-ahead strike on his own.
There were chances, and it was nice to see Juventus actually take advantage of them after what we saw on Sunday.
And that’s the overlying theme in all of this game, too. So much of what we saw against Cagliari played out against against Celta Vigo. We saw Juventus fall behind within the opening 20 minutes against the run of play. We saw them then struggle to muster much of a comeback attempt before the first half came to a close. We saw the shot count go up and up and up but nothing actually materialize until Woltemade got his goal. Then, of course, there was Kolo Muani’s header late on just as there was in Sardinia.
It was important for Juventus to get back on the horse and get three points after what we saw over the weekend against Cagliari. That much is a given. But for so much of this game, it didn’t look like that was actually going to happen. Then, with one of the final touches by a Juventus player in this game, Kolo Muani struck again.
For a player who has gotten a lot of heat the first two months of the 2026-27 season, he’s slowly starting to show that he can be a guy that can score goals for this team in important moments. Now let’s just hope it continues.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- A comeback win? IN THIS ECONOMY? I don’t believe it.
- Credit where credit is due: While Cambiaso will drive us made with his turnovers and his defensive mistakes, that cross on the game-winning goal to Kolo Muani couldn’t have been any better. That was an absolutely perfect ball and one only Juve’s No. 9 could get to.
- That doesn’t excuse that “defending” of his on Celta Vigo’s goal, but that assist was still a great one.
- Then again, the left side of that Juve defense was a mess for so much of that game before Spalletti made the changes in the 70th minute. Kelly looked totally out of whack. Same goes for Gatti. Cambiaso we already know was struggling defensively. It’s no surprise that Celta Vigo’s goal came out of a run down the left. Because that just makes too much sense.
- Then again, I don’t really know what much of Juve’s entire team was doing on Celta Vigo’s goal. You had multiple guys in different positions, attempts to slow down the counterattack completely fail and then, for the cherry on top, Weston McKennie essentially left on an island to try and defend two guys all by himself. It’s no wonder Celta Vigo scored — because Juve essentially handed it to them on a sliver platter.
- I said it Sunday and I will say it again: Look at what Juve did when Spalletti was using just one striker up front as compared to when he had both Kolo Muani and Woltemade on the field. Maybe, just maybe, it should tell us something.
- Woltemade said afterward that this game was his best since joining Juventus. Small sample size of games, I know, but what say you? You thinking along those lines like Big Nick?
- I mean, Woltemade had seven (!!!) key passes against Celta Vigo. That certainly is a lot!
- Just like that, Kolo Muani has three goals in his last five games. Could this be RKM turning a corner? I sure as hell hope so because that just adds to the hope that he could be firing in much better form once somebody like Kenan Yildiz is added to the attacking fold.
- Boy oh boy were Gatti and Kelly not very good in this game. Not good at all.
- I miss when Pierre Kalulu was consistently one of Juventus’ best players on the field every game and his crossing was a thing we wanted more of from him because it was so good. Now? Maybe it’s time for a day off. Zeki Çelik got his rest on Thursday night, so maybe Kalulu’s time to rest is soon to follow. (Although, with Lazio coming to Turin this weekend, who knows if that is even going to be a possibility.)
- Pape Sarr can stay. I like him a lot.
- As somebody who is turning 40 in a few days, I can happily say that seeing 39-year-old Iago Aspas out there brought a little smile on my face. Then thought of the “old” guy coming on and potentially scoring a game-winner against Juventus made me think something a little different.
- Teun Koopmeiners, just another bad game to add to the list of ‘em. At this point, it’s hard to keep track.
- Juventus still top of the Europa League table. How about that?!?!
- A win is a win is a win. I will keep reminding myself of that no matter how brutal that first half was.
