The status quo remained the status quo for Juventus on Sunday night at the Franchi.
What does that all mean?
Well, for one, they didn’t win — which is something they haven’t done in back-to-back games in Serie A since the first two weeks of the 2026-27 season. The two goals that Juventus allowed in their 2-2 draw with Fiorentina — a team that is still sitting just above the relegation zone with this result — were the result of some more lackluster defending from much of the team as a whole, let alone
on single player. And, despite the fact that Juventus fought back from trailing by a goal on two different occasions, it’s more of the same when it comes to Luciano Spalletti’s squad seemingly always having to fight some sort of uphill battle to get back into games.
Just as an added bonus, Juve needed a couple of big saves from Guglielmo Vicario to even hang onto said draw — which, considering how many points this team has already dropped against teams in the bottom half of the table already this season, would have also felt rather appropriate.
Then again, this Juventus team now goes into the November international break in seventh place in the Serie A table. The early Cinderella story of the season, newly-promoted Frosinone, is still above them. Considering this is probably the time that a lot of people actually start to truly care about what the league table looks like, the fact that Juve are sitting six points off AC Milan in fourth is a reason to worry.
If you weren’t worried already, of course.
Which, honestly, I doubt because we’ve been watching this Juventus team fail to consistently make a positive imprint on this season and their seventh-place standing really does feel reflective of that.
Yes, this was arguably Fiorentina’s biggest game of the season — because it always is when Juventus make the trip to Florence and their utter distain for the Bianconeri on the whole (despite so much money being sent to Florence over the years on the transfer front). But when you hand them a lead after less than four minutes, you’re just asking for the rest of the night to become a major struggle. That’s because if there is one team that Fiorentina have actually done well against these last couple of years as they’ve fallen from pushing for Europe to trying to avoid relegation, it’s Juventus. With Sunday’s draw, it is now the fifth straight time that Fiorentina have gotten points off Juve — which is obviously a far cry from how this matchup used to go when times were much, much better in Turin.
But, as we know, times aren’t great in Turin right now.
The mixed bag of performance levels following the quick Europa League turnaround continued. Juventus didn’t get the lead after Randal Kolo Muani and Nick Woltemade combined to level things up 13 minutes before the half. And if it wasn’t for Gleison Bremer’s team-leading third goal in Serie A play — yeah, that’s right — then Juve would have entered the final 20 minutes of this game actually trailing against a Fiorentina side that has only won two games so far this season.
Throw in the desperate need for Vicario to come up big not once but twice in stoppage time and you get what we know all too well at this point — Juventus are just an average kind of team right now.
So instead of going into the international break with a win, Juventus did whatever the hell you want to describe it as against Fiorentina. This is another performance that leaves you with more reasons for worry rather than for there to be positive about the state of where Spalletti has this team. Maybe some of these players getting a couple of weeks of not having to log heavy minutes will be the thing they need. We’re obviously going to be two weeks closer (and no Juventus losses) away from somebody like Kenan Yildiz coming back following the November break — which will hopefully the kind of jolt this team needs when a player like him returns after a long injury layoff.
But, the overlying theme coming out of the draw with Fiorentina is that nothing is actually getting better. There’s no reason to tell you that how Juve played against Fiorentina is going to change your mind about their trajectory this season. Instead, it’s just more of the same — and that is not going to be good enough to overcome the room they have to try and make up when games begin again in a couple of weeks.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- Oh, and for the record, it was a handball on Joao Mario and you can’t tell me otherwise. That sure would have been nice for the wonderful level that is current day Serie A refereeing to get right. Then again, it’s a call that would have benefited Juventus, so those are just few and far between in the year of 2026.
- Like, did they even look things over in the VAR booth? Because that woulda been nice!
- Somehow, Juventus still has one of the best defenses in Serie A. That’s statistically, because the eye test tells us something completely different.
- We’re officially at the November international break and Juventus’ leading goal scorer in Serie A is a center back.
- Even with the two goals in this game, Juventus have scored just 15 goals in 11 Serie A games.
- Teams with more goals than Juventus in Serie A play this season: Monza, Bologna and Sassuolo. Oh, and Fiorentina. Only one of those teams currently calls the top half of the table their current home. The other three are currently in 15th (Fiorentina), 17th (Sassuolo) and 18th place (Monza). That’s … not good.
- The marking on Fiorentina’s first goal — bad. Just all the way bad.
- It looks pretty simple as to what happened: Jhon Lucumi doesn’t challenge because he expects Nick Woltemade to challenge. Woltemade doesn’t challenge he expects Lucumi to challenge. Then Mateo Pellegrino, one of Fiorentina’s few big threats in the air, rises up unmarked at the back post and Fiorentina take the lead. Simple as that. Maybe just communicate? Or just go for the ball no matter what?
- Then Juventus’ second goal allowed was a total episode of how not to defend as a team. It wasn’t on one or two guys. The whole sequence saw players fail to do their jobs and then Fiorentina takes the lead again.
- At least Il Gigante Di Bremo scored his first goal in Serie A. That was nice.
- Even nicer was the cross from Kolo Muani that set Woltemade up for the goal.
- Looks like RKM’s new role out wide on the right is one that has lit a fire under him. If anything, it’s something that gives him more room to operate and plays to his strengths rather than seeing him struggle for touches and then have that frustration compounded because he’s not doing much with it through the center channel.
- This was a game that Juventus needed Bremer to be more like Bremer. And for the most part, he was.
- Seriously, getting that goal and dunking on Radu Dragusin at the same time was a nice little sight to behold.
- You can’t say the same about how Lucumi played against Fiorentina. That was a tough one.
- Two minutes in and two Juventus corner kicks? In this economy?
- Just don’t talk about how well those corners actually went because it’s a different story.
- At least Juve scored on one of the 12 corners they had against Fiorentina? Took a while, though.
- Fiorentina had 22 shots. Yeah, 22 shots!
- Another solid game for Teun Koopmeiners. It’s not the Atalanta version of Koopmeiners, but he’s certainly playing as well as he has in an extended stretch for Juventus since he signed in Turin. That’s a good thing. (I know the bar is low, but still!)
- Not the best game for Douglas Luiz even with the assist on Bremer’s goal.
- Is it safe to say that all four of Spalletti’s subs didn’t really do much after coming on? I think so.
- But hey, this team is just so all over the place from half to half that it’s impossible to think that they could actually have a nice response to going down in the fourth minute and actually come away with a win. That just seems like it’s too much to ask right now (or this season) (or the season before that).
- Juventus still hasn’t beaten Fiorentina since April 2024. I wonder what the guy who was Juve’s manager that day is up to these days. (Oh wait, I just looked at the Serie A table again. Maybe don’t answer that.)
- Seeing some hot takes about Jeff Ekhator all of about 30 minutes into his Juventus career and I’m not sure I like them all that much! There’s reactionary stuff after small sample sizes, then there’s whatever this is.
- That being said, that header that Ekhator skied over the crossbar probably should have been put on goal. I’m sure the young man knows that, too.
- I was waiting for the Nicolo Fagioli game-winning goal because the Ex Effect is dumb. Thank goodness it didn’t happen.
- Thank goodness the international break is upon us. I’m tired. Guessing you are, too. Two weeks without any Juventus games to watch will be a welcome change from nine games in 29 days. Get some sleep, my friends.
