Even if a certain somebody wasn’t coming back to Turin this weekend, Juventus and AC Milan’s first meeting fo the 2025-26 season would be filled with narrative with how both clubs have started the season.
They’re one point apart in the Serie A standings, with Milan sitting atop the table alongside defending champions Napoli and Roma on 12 points. Juve, of course, are just one point behind despite their recent string of draws.
But, as you can imagine, this weekend isn’t just about first place traveling to Turin to face the club in fourth.
This weekend is the first time since their not-so-amicable split a year and a half ago following the Coppa Italia final that Max Allegri will be walking through the tunnel at the Allianz Stadium. But instead of making the turn to the home bench that he’s spent so many years patrolling, he will turn the opposite direction on Sunday night as he makes what he has described as an “emotional” return to Turin for the first time with Milan. He will almost certainly get a warm reception for what he did during his time as Juve manager regardless of how things ended. (And things technically ended with him winning a trophy, so it’s not like it was so bad.)
Maybe ironically, Allegri’s return to Turin since his second tenure with Juventus ended in the spring of 2024 comes as he begins his second run with Milan about as well as even the most optimistic of supporters could have expected. That might not have been the line of thinking when Milan lost their season opener to everybody’s favorite early-season surprise Cremonese back on Aug. 23, but since then Milan have looked quite the difficult opponent for whoever they line up against.
And since that loss to Cremonese, they haven’t lost another one in either Serie A or the Coppa Italia. (Because, remember, with Milan finishing in eighth last season as they had one of their worst seasons in recent history, they’ve started their Coppa slate when pretty much every other big club in Italy was still going through their preseason friendlies.)
Allegri has the same kind of situation going for him in his first season with Milan that he did during his last campaign with Juventus — no European football and a week to train (and rest his players accordingly) between games. It’s clearly paying off so far, and the proof of that is what they did against Napoli last weekend even with the hurdle to clear of being down to 10 men for the final half hour at the San Siro.
So, it’s pretty easy to see that Milan enter Sunday night’s showdown as the more in-form squad.
And the much more rested, too.
Since their wild comeback victory over the black and blue side of Milan on Sept. 13, Juventus has done the following:
- Draw with Borussia Dortmund
- Draw with Hellas Verona
- Draw with Atalanata
- Draw with Villarreal
That’s … not ideal.
And all of these four straight draws have not come about in the same kind of manor, either. They’ve all had their unique traits, but also shared some things as well. In the end, all four have resulted in Juventus dropping points domestically and in Europe — which, considering how early it is can either be a reason for pause or a reason to hold off on the smashing of the panic button just yet.
Regardless of the results, Juve manager Igor Tudor says that things are improving. That, of course, is the public-facing view on things, but Tudor has shown during his short time as coach that he is a pretty straight shooter when it comes to how he views his team and the things going on around them. So this is what he had to say about things when asked about the current state of his squad at Saturday’s pre-match pre-match press conference:
“In my opinion, the lads have performed better than their opponents in the last two matches, coming close to victory in both games. The team is doing well and I can see them improving. They’re giving their all, and we have had a clear playing identity for six months now and know what we want to do both when we have the ball and when we don’t.”
Tudor went on to address how they’re continuing to stress balance in both attack and defense — which, considering how Juve’s played at the back in recent weeks, seems to be a pretty logical point of emphasis heading into a matchup against a Milan side that has scored just as many goals as his former club has so far this season.
In the final game of the first big stretch of fixtures this season, Juventus started with a bang and has subsequently struggled to replicate that same kind of result. The things are certainly tight at the top of the Serie A table through the first five weeks of the new campaign, but more dropped points this weekend could mean their former manager would have at least three points over them going into the October international break.
Max might not publicly say it, but you know a classic wry smile or two might be seen if that were to happen, too.
TEAM NEWS
- Have you heard Max Allegri used to manage at Juventus? Shame nobody has mentioned it! (I say that in jest. I will always love Max no matter how much of a struggle his second stint as manager was at times.)
- The two big doubts for Juve’s meeting with Milan continue to be Gleison Bremer and Khephren Thuram, who both missed the draw with Villarreal due to their respective injuries. Even if available for selection, neither player is expected to start against the current league leaders.
- Thuram did return to full training on Satruday, so he looks to be available to face Milan in some capacity.
- Bremer, however, could miss a second straight game going into the international break after doing individualized training to start the weekend.
- The players who are definitely out injured are Juan Cabal, Fabio Miretti and the perma-absent Arek Milik.
- Dusan Vlahovic appears to be the favorite to start in the No. 9 spot of Tudor’s 3-4-2-1 formation over Jonathan David and Loïs Openda. So if you were hoping for a little continuity up front, it might not be happening this weekend coming out of the midweek fixture.
- Francisco Conceição is expected to be back in the starting lineup after only being fit enough to come off the bench against Villarreal, a game in which he scored in to give Juve the lead.
- In a clear sign of just how long his wonderful career has spanned, 40-year-old Luka Modric will be playing against a team managed by his former national team teammate in Tudor, who is seven years his senior. That is pretty nifty.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
He was the unexpected source of an absolute worldie of a goal midweek. But, at the same time, there is still a lot to be desired about what his primary responsibility on the opposite end of the field.
And with Bremer looking like he’s set to probably miss a second straight game, Mr. Cats only becomes that much more important to Juventus’ chances of beating their former manager at the Allianz this weekend.
If you were to compare the form that Federico Gatti is displaying at this point of the season compared to 12 months ago, it is a very noticeable difference. For whatever reason, the early-season level Gatti displayed to begin the 2024-25 season has not been the same come the 20245-26 campaign.
Considering Bremer has both been understandably eased back into full-time action and now dealing with some minor physical issues as he plays his first heavy amount of minutes in about a year, There was no more evident example of that than in the draw with Villarreal in which Gatti very much looked a step too slow on plenty of occasions.
The thing is, though, with Bremer likely out, it’s not like Tudor can really go in a lot of directions. Without the big Brazilian available to start, that leaves Juve with a relatively solid at best (and frustrating at plenty of other times) selection of options. Gatti, be it naturally or just because of the kind of dude he is on the field, looks to be the leader of the bunch — which, of course, suggests its own set of issues for a club like Juventus that has such a rich defensive history.
With Allegri switching to a 3-5-2 a few weeks back, it likely means that Gatti will be going up against more speed in attack rather than a pure No. 9 that is brute force trying to match his brute force. That’s not something you really associated with Santi Giménez, and certainly not with Christian Pulisic — who should combine to form an all-CONCACAF strike partnership against Juventus. So that means Gatti will, like against Villarreal, have a lot of pace and technical ability to try and stop no matter if he’s on the right or in the center of Tudor’s three-man backline.
The hope is that it’s not as interesting of a night for The Cat Man on the defensive end of the field. If he does want to repeat recent history and take another crack or two at another overhead kick, there won’t be many objections ot that based on how things went a few days ago.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025.
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, 12 p.m. Eastern time, 11 a.m. Central time, 9 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TLN (Canada); TNT Sports 1 (United Kingdom).
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.
