Juventus and AC Milan head into Sunday night’s showdown at the Allianz Stadium likely thinking the same kind of thing.
After opening the 2026-27 season with wins over two provincial sides, the first big test of the new campaign is going to be lining up right across from them. And while one team has a brand new manager, the other one has a team that is potentially suited much more to the kind of ball he wants to play after a busy summer window.
Either way, two of the biggest spenders in Serie A during
the summer transfer window will now be opponents in the first game since the mercato came to a close in Italy.
The first Big Match of the season sees the new-look Milan side under former Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim face a very short-handed Juventus as Luciano Spalletti looks to make it three straight wins to begin the 2026-27 campaign. It’s the same deal for Milan after beating Torino and Milan, with Amorim’s arrival and performance through the first two games of the season having folks thinking that he’s got them on the rise after a season of Max Allegri that resulted in missing out on Champions League qualification.
Hey, you know what club also did that last season?
OK, let’s not dwell on the past even though this is technically a matchup of the two Serie A clubs who will be playing in the Europa League league phase a few days from now. (Or, more specifically, in like a week and a half from now.) Or maybe, just for the hell of it, we should look at what these two clubs have done in their last five meetings in Serie A:
- April 26, 2026: 0-0 draw
- Oct. 5, 2025: 0-0 draw
- Jan. 18, 2025: 2-0 Juventus win
- Nov. 23, 2024: 0-0 draw
- April 27, 2024: 0-0 draw
OK, so that’s not exactly what you would call dominance. There are no losses there, but there’s also not a whole lot of wins — and, as we know, it’s not like Milan have been all that impressive these last few years as they’ve had four different managers ever since the end of the 2023-24 season when Stefano Pioli left the club.
But the hope is that Amorim, regardless of what happened at his last place of employment, is the one that gets things going better again at Milanello.
While they do have very different approaches in terms of up-tempo styles, Amorim did have this going for him the minute he stepped off the plane in Milan as he took over Allegri’s squad: they both use three at the back, and that is something that has helped this transition to Ruben Ball. (Don’t think that name is gonna stick, but let’s just go ahead with it.) Amorim’s implementation of how he’s gotten Milan to press has certainly been a major change compared to how Allegri set things up and had his team trying to grind out result after result in a classic corto muso kind of style that he has now taken to Naples.
Again, though, just like Juventus, this is the first big test of the early work he’s doing.
I get that Juve are going to be very short-handed in this game. There’s no Kenan Yildiz to do Kenan Yildiz things. There’s no Khephren Thuram and Weston McKennie to bring energy to the midfield. Those are three very important pieces to the good things that Spalletti usually wants to try and bring to a game.
That’s not an excuse, though. Spalletti will still have a capable starting lineup on his hands even with all of those players on the sidelines due to injury. He didn’t have a lot of those same players last weekend against Parma and he was still able to make second-half changes that turned the game in Juve’s favor in a major way to make it two straight wins to begin the season.
This is a step up, though. We’re still learning about Amirom’s Milan, and maybe that’s part of the mystery about them going into this game. You only have a handful of friendlies and the first two Serie A fixtures to go off of right now, and that isn’t a whole lot — especially now that the transfer window is closed and rosters are basically set.
Either way, it’s the first big test for both Juventus and Milan on Sunday night.
And if Juventus can get a positive result, injury absences and all, then it’s hopefully a big thing that Spalletti can build on as this team that has plenty additions of its own works to find its own identity.
TEAM NEWS
- Injuries. Stupid, stupid injuries are everywhere again.
- Seven Juventus players will be unavailable through injury for Sunday’s game against Milan. Some are long-term injuries, others are more week-to-week situations.
- The long-term injuries are: Kenan Yildiz, Khephren Thuram, Jeff Ekhator and Juan Cabal.
- The short-ish-term injuries are: Weston McKennie, Andrea Cambiaso and summer signing Pape Matar Sarr, who is still working his way back to full fitness after joining the club last week. Spalletti added regarding this group’s status: “No one is fit yet. Let’s hope we can get a couple back for next week.”
- Another Deadline Day signing, forward Nick Woltemade, is not expected to start against Milan, Spalletti said during his pre-match press conference.
- Spalletti did hint that playing the combination of Woltemade and Randal Kolo Muani together is possible. “He’s good at playing in a two-man attack because he connects well with his teammates, creates space to attack and can link up brilliantly with Kolo Muani,” Spalletti said. ‘He also has the ability to make the most of aerial play on through balls.”
- Also not available to play against Milan on Sunday: Arek Milik. Not because he’s hurt again, though — he hasn’t been included in Juventus’ 25-man list for Serie A.
- After playing a starring role off the bench in Juve’s win against Parma last weekend, Nico González is expected to make his first start of the season on Sunday, playing in the hole behind Kolo Muani.
- Spalletti is expected to stick with the same defense that he used against Parma, with summer signing Jhon Lucumí partnering with Gleison Bremer in the center and Pierre Kalulu and Zeki Celik starting at two two fullback spots.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
For all of the players that Juventus brought in during the summer transfer window, it’s not like one of the most problematic position groups of the past few years — the midfield — got a whole lot of attention. Instead, Juve is relying on Spalletti to get a couple of players to try and get back their old form of yesteryear and improve the midfield.
While we will have to wait for one of those midfielders to actually play for Juventus, the other one has played a prominent role in both the preseason and now into the start of the new season as the games count for real.
And when you’re playing against a midfield that has Luka Modric still pulling the strings, just what your midfield does to try and counter that is quite important — and that’s probably putting it lightly.
So far, Douglas Luiz has been good in his first two starts back at Juventus. He hasn’t been great, but he hasn’t been the player who was completely MIA when Cristiano Giuntoli first brought him to Turin two years ago. Some of that may well just be me thinking that it’s nice he’s actually available again compared to how things were during his first months as a Juve player, so forgive me if that “your best ability is availability” cliché is running through my head at the moment.
But still, he’s playing, he’s in the starting lineup and he’s showing a few signs that Spalletti is onto something when it comes to reworking the 28-year-old Brazilian back into the squad after a season on loan in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest and then Aston Villa.
Now, I feel like it’s safe to say that Amorim will not employ the same kind of low block on a consistent basis that Parma did last weekend, thus resulting in Douglas Luiz not having to be one of the few players needed to actually unlock such a defense-first opponent.
Against Milan, though, you feel like Douglas Luiz will have to do a little bit of everything simply because Juventus will have to both beat the Amorim press but also try and slow down an attack that has looked dangerous. You know, be a complete midfielder as compared to what he was the last time he was on the roster when Juventus played against Milan. (Shocker, it was not actually a scoreless draw that time.)
Am I convinced that a double pivot of Douglas Luiz and Manuel Locatelli can work on a long-term basis this season? No, the sample size is still so small that we need much more of the eye test to make a final verdict. (Unless you’re into knee-jerk reactions, that is.) He’s not the midfielder that Thuram is, but he can certainly get forward and make runs into the opponents’ penalty area like he’s done under Spalletti already.
And if he does, then it will come in handy quite a bit for a short-handed Juventus on Sunday night.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, Sept. 6, 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: Telemundo (United States); TLN (Canada), TNT Sports 1 (United Kingdom).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, Peacock, Telemundo Deportes En Vivo (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN 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.
