After back-to-back games in which craziness and unpredictability have seemingly been the norm, Juventus manager Igor Tudor made things pretty clear what he is looking for from his team as they head out to Verona and return to Serie A opposition.
“It’s clear that mental clarity will be essential against Verona,” Tudor said during Friday’s pre-match press conference. “Tomorrow’s match will be won with our heads. We can win if we play at our best. If we don’t take the field 100% focused, we’ll struggle
there.”
For the first time under Tudor, Juventus will be playing their third game in a little over a week following the midweek madness that came with their 4-4 draw against Borussia Dortmund to open their Champions League campaign. But instead of facing one of the Serie A title contenders straight out of the international break in the Derby d’Italia like they did in the form of Inter Milan, Juventus will head out for their second away fixture of the 2025-26 season when they head to the Bentegodi on Saturday evening to face a Hellas Verona squad that is winless in their first three games of the new campaign.
This will also be a reunion of sorts personally for Tudor, who will managed Hellas Verona for a season in 2021-22 when he guided them to an impressive ninth-place finish after he replaced Eusebio Di Francesco early in the year. Tudor described being back at the Bentegodi this weekend as a “special” experience.
It’s the kind of soft-ish landing, in theory, you want after a couple of extremely taxing matchups both physically and mentally. However, it’s also the kind of fixture that screams “IT’S A TRAP!” at you because of both what has happened over the past week and how recent history tells us just how much Juve have struggled in these kinds of situations.
Juventus shouldn’t be dropping points against a team that enters Matchday 4 in 17th place. (Even though the standings through three games doesn’t tell us a whole hell of a lot considering the team right behind Juve in Serie A table is … Cremonese?!) But this is the kind of matchup that Juventus dropped a lot of points in last season under Thiago Motta. So many of Juve’s 16 draws (!!!) in Serie A came against teams in the middle or lower part of the league table.
While Juventus are in the midst of their best start to a new Serie A season since Max Allegri’s final campaign of his first tenure in Turin, those games weren’t following midweek fixtures in which the team had to bounce back from the emotional highs and lows and recharge after short rest.
So with all of that being said, how is Tudor approaching things this weekend knowing what his team has done over the last 180 or so minutes of football?
“We cannot make excuses, and we won’t,” he said.
Well that settles that then. I guess we don’t need any more evidence when it comes to Tudor’s feelings about trying to get a win after one of the highest scoring second halves of ball the Champions League has ever seen.
Now all that’s left to do is to prevent the first case of dropped points domestically and take the three points back to Turin with them in the wee hours of Saturday night and Sunday morning. Juventus can’t afford to fall into the trap of dropping points against Hellas Verona. And if they do that, then the week in between fixtures that awaits them will feel all the more refreshing.
Juventus have the chance to cap a hectic and crazy eight-day stretch with a win and avoid the trap they fell into so many times last season. Nobody wants to see that history repeat itself, that’s for damn sure.
TEAM NEWS
- Francisco Conceição returned to full training on Thursday and has been included in the traveling squad that has made the trip to Verona. Conceição missed the first two games out of the international break due to muscle fatigue he suffered from while on national team duty with Portugal.
- Tudor said at his pre-match press conference that Conceição nor Edon Zhegrova will be able to play a full 90 minutes against Hellas Verona, “but they can be very useful.“ Tudor added that Zhegrova still doesn’t have many minutes in his legs as he works his way back from his lengthy injury absence last season.
- With Conceição back in the squad, that means only Fabio Miretti and the forever-injured Arek Milik will be the only Juventus players unavailable against Hellas Verona.
- This will be Andrea Cambiaso’s first Serie A game in nearly a month after his two-match ban came to an end following last weekend’s Derby d’Italia. Cambiaso played the full 90 against Borussia Dortmund midweek.
- Tudor could choose to rest Gleison Bremer after the Brazilian center back played in his first midweek fixture sice coming back from his ACL injury. Bremer — who is also second in assists in Serie A, by the way — has started all four of Juve’s games so far this season, playing a full 90 minutes (or more) every time.
- If Bremer does get some rest this weekend, the Italian press are projecting that Federico Gatti will be at the center of the three-man backline, with Pierre Kalulu shifting into the back three and Joao Mario taking the starting spot at right wingback.
- Tudor strongly backed goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio, who has gotten some criticism from the Italian press in recent days after Juventus allowed a combined seven goals in the last two games. On Di Gregorio, Tudor said that he “is a great goalkeeper, and since I’ve been here, he’s made very few mistakes. He’s our starting goalkeeper and will remain so for the whole season.”
- Juan Cabal made his own return from major knee surgery in last weekend’s Derby d’Italia, and Tudor is certainly happy to have the Colombian defender back, saying that “he’s improving physically, he’s a player I really like, and he can play in multiple roles. He’s important to me, I know I can count on him.”
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
Outside of Kenan Yildiz this season, who has been Juventus’ best attacking player?
It feels like it’s a pretty easy pick, doesn’t it? The thing is, it’s a player who not many people actually expected to still be at Juventus following the close of the summer transfer window. That’s just an added element to this start to the season in which Juve have yet to suffer a lot.
And this guy has a good amount to do with it thanks to the goals he’s scored (and assisted on).
The start to the season Dusan Vlahovic has had is a surprise to many — even if you take out the giant storyline and narrative hanging over him about his future at Juventus. It’s well established that Juventus were looking to sell him this summer and get his massive, Serie A-high €12 million net salary off the books.
But while they did that, Juve also did something with Vlahovic: they also kept him as part of the squad, something that probably wouldn’t have been the case under the Bianconeri’s previous management team.
What that has allowed to do is let Vlahovic train alongside his teammates since the start of preseason rather than being frozen out of the squad and then suddenly brought back in because he wasn’t sold.
Now they’re reaping the rewards of a player who is both clearly hungry to show he wants to be on this team and is very much fighting for his next contract wherever it might be.
Juve’s comeback against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday night is just the latest evidence of that. He scored the goal to tie the game at 2-2 less than seven minutes after coming on at the hour mark. He then scored the goal that pulled Juventus within one at 4-3 and started the insane comeback in stoppage time. For added measure, he assisted on Lloyd Kelly’s game-tying goal in the 96th minute, capping a move he started in Juve’s defensive third. It was one hell of a performance — and even more of the case considering it was his latest big-time impact coming off the bench.
The difference is now that he’s expected to start against Hellas Verona just like he did against Inter last weekend. And, you can’t blame Tudor if he does go that direction simply because Vlahovic is forcing the issue. He deserves to start with how he’s playing to start the season, and his manager should follow suit.
Who knows how much longer this wave of great form will continue to for Vlahovic, a player who is prone to both extreme hot and cold streaks with his form. But, for now, we’ll continue to ride this wave like we’re in Hawaii and trying to show that we can hang on the water with the locals who have been doing it for decades.
MATCH INFO
When: Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025.
Where: Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, Verona, 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 a.m. Central time, 9 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: No TV options available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom or Italy.
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, DAZN USA, Amazon Prime Video (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada; Amazon Prime Video; Fubo Sports Network 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.
