Igor Tudor is out as Juventus manager, with the club making a somewhat expected move official on Monday following the 1-0 loss to Lazio at the Stadio Olimpico. The natural question is: Who’s going to replace him?
While we know Massimo Brambilla will be on the sidelines for Wednesday night’s home fixture against Udinese, who is manager beyond that is still a relatively unknown.
But the list of potential options appears to be taking shape.
According to reports from Sky Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio and
SportItalia’s Alfredo Pedulla, Juventus have made contacts with former Roma, Napoli and Italy manager Luciano Spalletti about the suddenly open coaching job in Turin. Di Marxio said earlier in the day as news of Tudor’s firing first broke that Spalletti was Juventus’ top choice to be their new manager, and that the 66-year-old tactician would be open to a return to club football following his less-than stellar run at the helm of the Azzurri.
Another former Italy manager, Roberto Mancini, and former Monza and Fiorentina manager Raffaele Palladino have also been thrown out there as potential Tudor replacements. But, for now, it looks as though Juve is trying to get something done with Spalletti before the weekend’s fixture against Cremonese.
Spalletti has been out of work since June following his dismissal as Italy manager. It came under rather strange circumstances in which he was informed by the FIGC that he would be sacked as a result of Italy’s loss to Norway, but he was still able to manager the Azzurri’s next World Cup qualifier against Moldova all of a few days later.
It was a managerial choice in which Spalletti was looked at as a great hire following his title-winning run with Napoli. It went just about the opposite of what was expected.
Just what Spalletti would be able to do in the short term to try and turn Juventus around both domestically and in Europe is hard to say. He is notorious for having a system that takes time to fully embed with the team he’s coaching — and with how things are looking right now, time is not something that Juve have before things get even more dire.
Out of the three rumored options, is Spalletti the best? Who really knows at this point. Juventus’ problems go beyond just the manager who is on the sidelines. They’ve now fired a manager in-season for the second straight season and second time within a calendar year. The man they just fired after seven months as manager took over for somebody who was manager for just 10 months. It’s not a situation in which Spalletti can just come in, snap his fingers, and everything is going to turn for the better.
Plus, Spalletti isn’t going to come cheap — which, for a club that has paid two managers to go away in 2025, probably isn’t the thing you want to hear. If they do hire Spalletti, they have to be pretty confident it will work out both in the short and longer term. Because if they are left searching for another coach a year or two from now, it’s just going to feel like more of the same from this club over the past five years.
