A coach was fired, a CEO departed, a financial investigation, and the worst run of form in almost two decades.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mad Max: Thunderdome, where two men enter, and one man leaves!
Juventus, where chaos has become the norm!
It really is a strange time at the club. We’re making headlines for all the wrong reasons — both on and off the pitch. Every season promises to be the one in which things will (start to) turn around at the club but then it just ends up being another season in which we didn’t really progress and we often end up changing coaches.
And yet, amidst the madness and depressing state of affairs, we’re still only six points off the top of the table in the Serie A (at the time of writing), with only one goal more conceded and four goals fewer scored than league leaders Napoli.
So remember ragazzi, even though it looks bad now, things could always be much worse.
Year 0
Juventus traveled to Spain to play Villarreal in the second match of the league phase of the Champions League (there’s still no tidy way to write that). Georges Mikautadze scored the game’s first goal after a pass from the livewire Nicolas Pepe created havoc in the Juventus defense. Andrea Cambiaso slipped, Pepe and Mikautadze combined, and the latter tapped the ball past Mattia Perin. Villarreal edged this tight match in the first half, mostly thanks to Pepe dominating Juan Cabal on the wing, but Juventus responded well to conceding the first goal and created a few good chances through Weston McKennie and Kenan Yildiz.
Remarkably, Federico Gatti equalized early in the second half with a spectacular goal.
A long throw-in from McKennie found its way to into the box via Lloyd Kelly. Gatti responded with an instinctive overhead kick that seemingly caught goalkeeper Arnau Tenas (and everybody else) by surprise as he reacted late to the shot and let it slip under his hands: 1-1. Substitute Francisco Conceição then capitalized on another mistake from a Villareal player, this time from Dani Parejo who reacted slowly to a pass from a teammate and lost possession. Conceição dribbled into the box and finished with a left-footed shot down the middle.
The Bianconeri defended the lead well for the remainder of the game and restricted Villarreal to few chances in the second half. Unfortunately, one chance was all they needed to equalize. Ex-Juventus defender Renato Veiga scored a header from a corner kick in the 90th minute to deny his former team the victory in a frustrating but entertaining game that we should have won. Final score: 2-2.
Back in Serie A, the Bianconeri welcomed AC Milan and former coach Massimiliano Allegri to town. It was another tight game in which Milan was probably the better team as they created the higher quality chances through the likes of Santiago Giménez, Rafael Leao, and, crucially, Christian Pulisic who shot his penalty over the bar early in the second half. The biggest chances for the Bianconeri fell to Gatti (again!) through a header and an acrobatic half-volley from corners that Mike Maignan saved excellently. It ended goalless, a result that helps neither team in the battle for top 4 (and possibly the Scudetto).
We then traveled to the beautiful city of Como to play one of the league’s darling teams. Marc-Oliver Kempf gave Como the lead in the 4th minute after he volleyed an absolutely perfect cross from Nico Paz into goal. Juventus struggled to test goalkeeper Jean Butez too much during the game and we found ourselves 2-0 down after another magical moment from Paz. Charging forward on the counter, he cut inside to his left foot and curled the ball into the far corner despite Cambiaso’s attempt to block the shot. Final score: 2-0.
From Como to Madrid for Matchday 3 of the Champions League against Real Madrid. It was a fascinating match that ebbed and flowed nicely in the first half. Juventus edged the beginning of the game and seemed to threaten on the counter, especially on the right side through the brave but offensively-limited Pierre Kalulu. Real Madrid dominated possession and shots but overall the game was quite even in the first period. Xabi Alonso’s team gained more control of the game as time went on and Di Gregorio made numerous saves throughout the match to keep the score respectable. Jude Bellingham scored the game’s only goal in the 57th minute when Vini Jr’s shot rebounded off the post and Bellingham tapped the rebound into goal from a few yards out. Vlahovic and Openda had big chances to equalize but we lacked the killer instinct needed to score. McKennie, Gatti (new center forward?), and Kostic all had a few shots as well but goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois had a solid game in goal to keep a clean sheet for his team. Final score: 1-0.
The away game against Lazio was arguably our worst performance of the month. Toma Basic scored with a deflected shot after a fantastic assist from… Juventus striker Jonathan David, who headed the ball straight to the Lazio midfielder deep in our own half and directly caused the goal. Juventus struggled desperately to create clear-cut chances in the first half but had more urgency after the break mostly thanks to substitutes Khéphren Thuram and Kenan Yildiz. The biggest moment of the second half came around the hour mark when Alessio Romagnoli stamped on Conceição in the box but the referee waved away our penalty claims. A miserable performance against a mediocre Lazio team ends in a 1-0 loss and the dismissal of Igor Tudor.
We ended the month on a high note with the best performance of October at home against Udinese, with Next Gen manager Massimo Brambilla taking charge for he night. Vlahovic scored a penalty in the fifth minute and the Bianconeri piled on the pressure with a flurry of shots and chances in the first half. Once again, our opponents punished us for our wastefulness, as Nicolo Zaniolo equalized for the visitors in first-half stoppage time after pouncing on a loose ball in the box. But Juventus continued its relentless attack in the second half and breathed a huge sigh of relief when our pressure paid off with a second goal. Gatti (there he is again!) headed in a corner from Cambiaso after 67 minutes of play. Yildiz scored the killer goal deep into stoppage time when he won and scored a penalty in the 96th minute. A more difficult game than it looked but a very encouraging performance that gave us our first and only victory in October: 3-1.
Juventus Women
Juventus Women opened the month with a goalless draw against Sassuolo in the league opener, but followed that with a surprise 2-1 comeback victory over Benfica in the first fixture of the new-look Women’s Champions League. (They’ve also now switched to one big league phase table.) Cecilia Salvai scored a header and a poacher’s goal inside the box to win the game for the Bianconere after they conceded an early goal from Lucia Alves. In between Salvai’s two goals, Barbara Bonansea thought she scored a goal as well but VAR ruled it was offside.
Just like the men’s team, the women’s team also lost to Como in the league this month. After a tight first and second half, Nadine Nischler volleyed in an 84th minute winner to give her team the late victory. A second consecutive loss followed after that as Juventus lost 2-1 to European heavyweights Bayern Munchen in the Champions League. Pernille Harder headed in the first goal of the game in the 11th minute but Eva Schatzer curled in a delightful free kick in the 17th minute to equalize.
It looked like Juventus were heading for a hard-earned draw but lost the game in the 95th minute in the most unfortunate of manners. Lea Schuller’s cross deflected off Harder and crept into goal. A bitterly painful 2-1 loss. Last but not least, the Bianconere beat Lazio 1-0 in the final game of the month thanks to an 86th minute penalty from Cristiana Girelli after a handball by Eleonora Goldoni in the box.
Not another teen movie reset
For the third time in less than two years, Juventus has said goodbye to a coach. After Massimiliano Allegri and Thiago Motta, Igor Tudor is now the latest to depart the club. The Bianconeri fired the Croatian coach barely two months into the 2025-26 season.
Admittedly, the results on the pitch, especially in October, were miserable. The team went eight games without winning before finally beating Udinese 3-1 on the 29th.
The mood at the club seems gloomy. Juventus hired former Napoli and Azzurri coach Luciano Spalletti to manage the team at least until the end of the season. The duration of Spalletti’s contract emphasizes the problems at the club. Either nobody knows what the long-term plan is or, when we do have one, nobody wants to stick with it.
Since the Allegri 1.0 era, we have committed to two new big “projects” through Andrea Pirlo and Thiago Motta. I believe we never gave Maurizio Sarri the players he needed for his system so, to me, we didn’t truly committ to a Sarri project. In both the Pirlo and the Motta case, we gave up at the earliest sign of discomfort. Despite qualifying for the Champions League in a dramatic finale on the final matchday of the season, the club parted ways with Pirlo. Motta didn’t even get a full season and was ordered to leave after 10 months in charge. Of course, the Allegri 2.0 era was an attempt to return to the glory days of Allegri 1.0.
In the cases of Pirlo and Motta, it seems like the club had an idea for a long-term project but didn’t want to stick with it for the long-run. As evidenced by the incredible tenure of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool — he was hired in 2015 but only won his first trophy with the club, the Champions League, in 2019 — true long-term projects take a few seasons before they start producing results/trophies. But who has the time or patience for that, especially when the only way we stay somewhat stable financially is if we qualify for the Champions League every season? The luxury of giving a project a few seasons to produce results is simply not there.
Now it seems like the club has no idea of a long-term plan. We all knew that Tudor was always going to be a temporary solution as the club presumably took this season to figure out a plan. But now even the temporary plan has been eliminated, so I have absolutely no idea what the hell is even going on anymore.
One thing seems pretty certain though: it looks like it’s going to be yet another reset and yet another dreaded “transition” season.
