It is the time in the schedule in which I can roll out the line I usually do this time of the year: Everybody, we are down to the amount of fixtures that we can count with just our two fingers and nothing more is needed. And just like last season, unfortunately, Juventus are in a position in which they are needing help to achieve the one seasonal goal that is actually possible — finishing in the top four and qualifying for the Champions League.
Juve got a little bit of help last weekend. Not as much
as we were all hoping for, but Como beating Roma on Sunday did, at the very least, knock one team down a peg when it comes to the teams who are still thinking a fourth-place finish is possible. Juventus entered the weekend in sixth, they jumped into fourth, but ended in fifth because Como — yes, the plucky underdogs who have one of the wealthiest ownership groups in the sport — are now sitting in the final spot to qualify for the Champions League.
So, my friends, with nine games to go, Juventus are still in need of help.
As we hope that Como’s next opponent — which is … checks notes … ah, crap it’s 19th-place Pisa — provides a little bit of help, we do know that Juventus can do as they did seven days earlier and jump into fourth place for at least a few hours on Saturday night going into Sunday. The catch is that it’s a Sassuolo team that Juve beat up on back in January but has also been a historically annoying-as-hell kind of provincial opponent who will always be looked at as a potential speed bump in the race for fourth place.
Saturday night in Turin is the final game before an international break that is massively important for anybody who has been paying attention to the World Cup qualifying cycle. But before that can happen, Luciano Spalletti’s squad has the chance to win their third straight game going into said internatinal break.
Which, honestly, is a nice thing to write about considering how the month of February went.
“In this final part of the season, the decisions we make will be crucial,” Spalletti said during his pre-match press conference on Friday. “Technical errors are part of the game, and knowing how to make good decisions improves everything. Good decisions improve the team’s playing style. It’s not a minor detail; it’s crucial because it puts the team in a position to develop everything more. Making decisions is a very important verb; in football, to do it well, you also have to be good at anticipating and predicting. Decisions come before technical moves.”
Sassuolo have certainly had an interesting past five games. They have been hammered 5-0 by league-leading Inter Milan. They’ve also picked up a win over an Atalanta side that at the time looked to be on the resurgent path before coming back down to earth domestically and then getting steamrolled by Bayern Munich and being the final Italian team to be dumped out of the Champions League. They’ve also lost to Lazio and Bologna in their two most recent results — which probably aren’t the greatest of results considering neither of those two opponents have looked all that impressive of late. (Of course, Bologna has since ousted Roma from the Europa League Round of 16, which maybe signals they’re in better shape now compared to a few weeks ago.)
But, on the whole, they’re a Sassuolo side that have come back to Serie A and currently sit 1oth in the table. Fabio Grosso was never a manager who had done much in Serie A before this season. To his credit, he has not only gotten this club promoted but now has continued to get them into a position in the league table where they are more than secure with less than 10 games to go and are probably doing better in their return to Serie A than most thought was possible when compared to how other newly-promoted clubs have done in recent years.
So, no matter how Sassuolo have done in the last couple of weeks and enter this trip to Turin on the receiving end of back-to-back losses
Oh, by the way, Domenico Berardi is healthy again. This feels important to mention. (Mainly because we can probably expect some sort of transfer rumors to happen in the following few days if he does something of note.)
We know tougher fixtures are lying in wait come April and May. But that doesn’t mean this specific one for Juventus is an easy one. Sassuolo, regardless of how the first meeting with Juve went this season, have shown they can pull off a big result and take points off a team from the top portion of the table.
Just like the last couple of weeks, this is all about Juventus taking care of business, avoiding any sort of silliness from happening when it comes to dropping points against a provincial side and putting pressure on those in front of them. Sounds simple, right? Well, nothing is simple this time of year. But Juve need the points — no matter how they end up getting them.
TEAM NEWS
- After worries coming out of last weekend’s win over Udinese about him coming off with some sort of ankle injury, Khephren Thuram returned to training with the group on Thursday and is expected to be called up to face Sassuolo.
- However, it’s still unknown if Thuram will be able to play from the start on Saturday. If he is not able to play from the opening whistle, it is widely expected that Teun Koopmeiners will step into the starting lineup and play alongside Manuel Locatelli.
- Spalletti was rather coy about the status of Dusan Vlahovic after he missed last weekend’s game in Udinese despite most folks expecting him to return to the matchday squad. Spalletti said Vlahovic, who has been training with the squad for much of the week, still needs to be evaluated ahead of the squad list being released on Saturday morning.
- The only player we know who is definitely out for Saturday’s game against Sassuolo is fullback Emil Holm, who has been out since mid-February with a calf injury.
- Mattia Perin is expected to keep his place as Juventus’ starter in goal. Perin has kept clean sheets in back-to-back games following his inconsistent performances against Galatasaray and Roma a couple of weeks ago.
- Weston McKennie and Lloyd Kelly are both one yellow card away from having to serve a one-game suspension.
- Juventus have won their last three games against Sassuolo and four of their last six matchups against the Neroverdi overall.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
You know what’s cool? Seeing a guy who has been through some serious stuff come out better on the other side of it, flash a big smile as often as he’s able to and then let everybody know how much he’s currently shining.
That seems to be the case with Juve’s winter signing who looks like he can’t stop scoring at the moment.
So as we wonder about what kind of setup Spalletti might go with, it feels pretty safe to say this: It feels pretty tough to bench the guy who has scored in three straight games, doesn’t it?
Jérémie Boga has done something for the first time in his career in the last three weeks. He had never scored a goal in back-to-back-to-back games, with his tally in Serie A now a greater number than somebody like Loïs Openda both domestically and in all competitions over the course of their respective careers in Turin.
There’s also this when it comes to Boga: he’s about to play the club that brought him to Italy nearly a decade ago.
This will likely be a night in which Boga has some emotions attached to his mindset as he takes the field. Handling those will obviously be important to how he plays. The good thing is that he is playing fairly well as a Juventus player, and you have to believe that his confidence is pretty high after scoring in three games in a row. What he does with that confidence remains to be seen, of course, but you best believe he is enjoying his football again these days.
I mean, just look at that smile after his goal against Udinese last weekend. That man is enjoying this profession that he’s chosen after a rough spell — one that was not by his own doing — to end his time with Nice.
Where Boga lines up if he is indeed included in the starting lineup is a bit of a question mark as well. As we know, he started out on the left wing with Kenan Yildiz as the false 9 last weekend before Spalletti realized things weren’t working and flipped their respective positions. That opened things up — mainly because Yildiz had much more space to operate — and the proof was in the results after that.
So does Spalletti keep things that way? Does he go back to how they were at the start against Udinese? Or is Boga a somewhat surprising omission from the starting lineup and back to being an option off the bench?
No matter what, he’s a player who is scoring goals — and that’s not something we can say about a lot of Juventus attackers at this current moment.
MATCH INFO
When: Saturday, March 21, 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, 3:45 p.m. Eastern time, 2:45 p.m. Central time, 12:45 p.m. Pacific time.
(Please note that the kickoff time might be an hour later than usual like it will be in the United States due to Daylight Saving Time taking place last weekend. The time change will happen in Italy on March 29.)
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TLN (Canada), Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport Calcio, Sky Sport 251 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA, fuboTV (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italy, Sky Go Italia, NOW TV (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.
