Coming out of the first international break of the season, Juventus provided us with one of the most thrilling domestic games we’ve seen in a good amount of time. A seven-goal thriller, last month’s Derby d’Italia win was a comeback in which Juve showed some promising fight under circumstances that we certainly don’t see every day.
So what did Juve do in their first game back after the second international break of the season?
Let’s just say it wasn’t anything close to what we saw against Inter Milan
a little over a month ago.
Juventus now have a number other than zero in the loss column after Sunday afternoon’s 2-0 loss to Como on the shores of Lake Como. It was, unfortunately, yet another disappointing performance in what has turned into a strng of them following the win over Inter last month. And not only that, but Juventus saw one of the game’s brightest young talents, Como attacking midfielder Nico Paz, continue his brilliant start to the 2025-26 campaign with a sublime assist and maybe an even better goal, leading the lakeside club to their first win over Juventus since 1952 by the same 2-0 scoreline that we saw on this day. (Guessing not many of you were even alive to see that one take place. Or maybe you didn’t want to see this one go down, either. Hard to say at this point.)
But hey, at least the run of five straight draws is over, right?
No, in this case, it’s not a good thing. Far from it. Because Juventus still hasn’t won another game ever since that wild 4-3 victory over their arch rivals at the Allianz Stadium. It’s now been five draws and this first loss of the season in all competitions ever since that crazy September night.
And it was pretty clear from the moment that Como took a 1-0 lead all of 3 1/2 minutes in, that Juventus were on the back foot and things needed to change in a hurry to have any chance of getting points against a Como side that was pressing like absolute madmen from the get-go. The problem was, though, that Juve didn’t exactly look like they had multiple goals in them on this day. There was instances of good build-up and then some sort of mistake in the final third that prevented any sort of chance on goal being created. (Juventus completed just 57% of their passes in the final third, by the way — which, I dunno, seems pretty bad.)
You, things that we’ve seen all season. Or even the last couple of seasons.
The fact that Juventus started the season under Igor Tudor with three straight wins seems so far away now. Maybe because it is even though on the calendar it’s not a huge period of time. Since Juventus beat Inter, they’ve seen their most important player at the back injure his troublesome knee again, they’ve seen the same issues of last season come back to the fore, they’re struggling to both create goal scoring chances as well as simply score the chances they do have on a consistent basis.
Sure, Juve outshot Como 15-12 on the day. But even with that, Juventus had all of 0.88 xG — which isn’t exactly impressive when you consider the number of shots they actually attempted on the day.
So how do Juve follow up a drab draw against AC Milan and blowing a 2-1 lead late against Villarreal in the Champions League? Well, with whatever the hell we just saw them do against Como during Serie A’s lunchtime kickoff on a Sunday afternoon.
Things aren’t trending in the right direction for Tudor or this squad as a whole. There’s only so much three straight wins can buy you when things quickly turn for the worse like they have for Juventus ever since the Inter win. This team is worryingly starting to feel a lot like the squad that Tudor came in to try and get into the Champions League last season despite all of the changes they tried to make to the attacking area of the field. Unfortunately, a lot of the other areas of the field remain the same — and knowing how things went on that front last season, that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Juventus were clearly the second-best team on the field at the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia on Sunday. If we say the same type of thing three days from now at a much bigger and much more famous stadium, then it’s probably not going to be after a win — and that, my friends, is far from the kind of start Juventus needed to begin this post-international break run of games.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- Lunchtime kickoffs, I will never like you.
- It’s kinda funny to see Rino Gattuso in the stands for this one knowing full well that there weren’t many Italians amongst the 22 players that were in the two starting lineups. Maybe he just wanted to spend a nice Sunday afternoon by Lake Como. Can’t really blame him for that, I guess.
- Have I mentioned before that I despise lunchtime kickoffs? Yeah, not a fan.
- Juventus going behind less than four minutes in, that’s just not helping matters.
- Still kinda wondering what Pierre Kalulu was doing on Como’s goal. What happened to the lockdown defender from a season ago? There seems to be a whole lot more mistakes in his game these days.
- That’s not to take away from the clearly rehearsed corner routine from Como. That was a very nifty sequence and simply a brilliant ball from Nico Paz to set it all up.
- Nico Paz. He good.
- At least Tudor went with a 4-3-3? It feels more forced because of injuries, but at least he did it.
- That said, when your partnership in central defense is Daniele Rugani and Lloyd Kelly, how optimistic can you be that things will go well or you at the back?
- Take away a few players because of injuries and that Juventus bench looks awfully short of options and certainly not that impressive at all. But hey, the highest paid player in Serie A was once again on the bench, so that should at least boost the value of the bench unit, right? (Don’t answer that.)
- Juventus had nine shots in the first half. None of them were on goal.
- Como had six shots in the first half. Half of them were on target.
- A statement that remains true 100% of the time: Stay onside, (Juventus player of choice).
- How many times did a Juventus player fall down because they slipped in this game? Feel like it was a good four or five times at least — and it was usually an attacking player doing so. Blame Lake Como maybe? I don’t know, but it sure would have been nice for those stumbles to not happen during important passages of play.
- Good to see that Alvaro Morata’s style of wearing enough hair gel so that his hair doesn’t move a centimeter no matter what he does on the field remains true. What a guy. I miss him.
- It took nearly 63 minutes for Juventus to record a shot on goal. It was a rather simple save off a header from Teun Koopmeiners. Of course, with how open he was in the box, it probably should have resulted in more, but that’s just how it goes with a certain Dutchman these days.
- It’s the 68th minute, Como has a goal kick and they sent it right to Rugani. He has an unchallenged header, takes his time to line up where he wants to go with it … and it goes right to a Como player. So it goes.
- It’s the 70th minute, Juventus are down a goal and Tudor still hasn’t made a sub or looks all that close to doing so. What exactly are we doing here, folks?
- Those first subs happened eight minutes later. What were we waiting for exactly?
- Como scored two minutes later. Good times.
- I really hope this team isn’t turning into one where it’s basically “Let’s hope Kenan or Chico does something cool” most of the time, but it’s starting to feel a little bit like that and I don’t like it. No matter how talented those two guys are, they can’t be your only source of goal chance creation.
- Another DNP-CD for Loïs Openda. That’s not encouraging.
- I love Khephren Thuram. I really do. But there are times in the first half where he’s trying to track back on defense and he’s already looking tired. Maybe it’s just his running style. I still don’t know for sure. But it’s a little worrying, right? I’m not crazy, right?
- Kelly finishing with a team-high 91 touches maybe tells you everything you need to know about the current state of Juventus. I think it’s at least a hint!
- Remember when Andrea Cambiaso was in fine form and scoring against Como in last season’s opener? It feels so long ago when he was in such fine form.
- Now, he’s getting put in the mixer by Nico Paz right before he scores a goal. Not great, Bob.
- All of one Juve player, Francisco Conceição, had a Sofascore rating of 7 or more. That feels about right for how this game played out.
- In conclusion, that is not good. It feels like a Comoo player just started pressing me while I type this sentence.
- I’m going back to bed. The bourbon can wait for now. I need sleep. And maybe a sad nap later.
