The draw for the Champions League league phase was held on Thursday at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, and Juventus now know who they’ll be playing over the next five months as they fight for the knockout rounds.
Having been placed in Pot 2, there were a lot of ways that the draw could have gone that would’ve made the first half of the season a good deal harder. Fortunately, the draw gods smiled upon the club, and gave them a slate that, while by no means pushovers, should also be one they can compete
against.
Here’s a quick rundown of all eight opponents the team will be squaring up against.
Real Madrid
Head to head record (W-D-L) : 9-2-11
Last played: 2025 Club World Cup Round of 16, lost 1-0
Again?
It feels like we see Real Madrid every other year, and indeed, Juve/Real is one of the most-played rivalries in the Champions League will revive once again, and at the Bernabeu to boot. But despite having been knocked out by Los Blancos in the Club World Cup round of 16 this past summer, this will actually be the first time the clubs have locked horns in the Champions League since the Michael Oliver Affair in 2018.
Madrid are still one of the most powerful teams in the world, but they aren’t the unstoppable force they have been in the recent past. Observe the way they were eliminated from their most recent international club competitions: they were ragdolled by Arsenal 5-1 on aggregate in the Champions League quarterfinals and blown away 4-0 by PSG in the Club World Cup semis. All this despite having the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior to call on in attack and other glittering superstars sprinkled throughout.
This is the only fixture Juve will have against a true giant, and it will be at the Bernabeu. Real Madrid are the better team of the two at this point, so it’s fair to say this is one of the few times you go in less than confident you can get something out of it.
Borussia Dortmund
Head to head record: 5-0-2
Last played: 2014-15 Champions League Round of 16, won 5-1 on aggregate.
One of the first true masterpieces of Max Allegri’s first tenure at Juventus (before he turned into a tactical dinosaur who played scared) was Juve’s 3-0 demolition of Jurgen Klopp’s last Borussia Dortmund team in the second leg of the ‘14-15 round of 16. Going in up 2-1 on aggregate, they went ahead on Carlos Tevez’s third-minute goal and never looked back, completely neutralizing Dortmund’s vaunted press and sending them out of the competition with a thumping.
Last season was something of a struggle for the Westphalian side. They were eliminated from the DFB Pokal in the second round, and a trio of losses in January saw Nuri Şahin lose his job, replaced by Nico Kovač. The Croatian manager stumbled at first before righting the ship, winning all but one of his games from March 30 to the end of the year (the one being a 2-2 draw away to Bayern Munich) and pipping Freiberg to the Bundesliga’s final UCL spot. amid the turmoil, they advanced to the quarterfinal of both the Champions League and Club World Cup, going out to Barcelona and Real Madrid, respectively.
Juve took a rather convincing 2-1 victory against Dortmund in a preseason friendly earlier this month. While it was a friendly, it was also played in Signal Iduna Park and jam-packed with 81,000-plus Dortmund fans going crazy for club legend Mats Hummels’ testimonial. They’ll get the real game at home, and despite Dortmund’s Pot 1 status they’ll likely be a good matchup the Bianconeri when they visit Turin.
Benfica
Head to head record: 0-1-6
Last played: 2024-25 Champions League League Phase, lost 2-0
Apart from Madrid, this is probably the team that no Juventino wanted to see on the schedule.
You read that right up at the top of the section: Juventus have never beaten Benfica in a competitive match. Even the draw was upsetting, a goalless draw in the second leg of the 2013-14 Europa League semifinal that knocked Juve out of the competition.
This will be the third straight time Juventus have played Benfica in the Champions League, and despite the scorelines looking ok-ish, the three games Juve have played in their last two go-rounds were pretty much dominated by the Portuguese. Juve will have comfort of being at home for this match, but then again, they’ve lost their last two home matches against Benfica by a combined score of 4-1. This is a hold-your-breath type fixture that for Juve. The big hope is that Benfica will be engaged in the early phases of another Premeira Liga title dogfight and will perhaps be a little sapped of energy here. Other than that, it’s up to Igor Tudor and his charges to turn history around a little bit. Maybe bring in Roy Kent to break some benches?
Villarreal
Head to head record: 0-1-1
Last played: 2021-22 Champions League Round of 16, lost 4-1 on aggregate
Another team Juve fans have rotten memories of recently, the Yellow Submarine’s only competitive matches against Juventus came in the round of 16 in 2021-22, when Juve completely flopped to a 3-0 home defeat in the second leg to crash out.
This Villarreal group isn’t the same as the ones that humiliated Juve three years ago, but Gerard Moreno is still a threat up top, and Juve’s front line will be in for a reunion with Renato Veiga, who Chelsea just sold to Villarreal despite Juve’s interest in keeping him around after last year (better not to try to figure out what the heck Chelsea’s thinking in the market though). They’re a dangerous side, but are also a beatable one if Juve are on their A-game.
Sporting CP
Head to head record: 2-2-0
Last played: 2022-23 Europa League Quarterfinal, won 2-1 on aggregate
Juve get both Portuguese teams in the competition, including defending Premeira Liga champs Sporting, who they have had a much better record against than their Lisbon rivals.
That includes their quarterfinal win in the Europa League two seasons ago, when they won the first leg late and held on to maintain a 1-1 draw in the second at the Estádio José Alvalade.
Like Benfica, the Sporting game will be at home, which is probably for the best, seeing as how both of Juve’s head-to-head wins against them have come at the Allianz. The big question will be whether they’ll have striker Conrad Harder, who has been linked with a move to AC Milan, and was considered as an alternative to Randal Kolo Muani earlier this summer as well. Far stronger connections were made between Juve and midfielder Morten Hjulmand, who Juve were quite keen on at one point before it became clear Sporting would hold out for an unreasonable fee.
One of the keys to this game will be how Juve’s midfield matches up against Hjulmand, who can control the middle of the park and even has an eye for goal. If they can keep up with the Dane, they’ll have a good shot and getting all three points here.
Bodø/Glimt
Never played in a competitive match
One hopes that the trip to face Bodø/Glimt will be earlier in the season, because a wintertime trip to Norway is about the last thing Juve is going to want.
Juve have never faced the Norwegian side before, but they have a lot of history with Italian teams in this decade. In the 2020-21 season—their first in European competition since 2004-05—they barely missed making the Europa League proper, losing to AC Milan 3-2 at the final hurdle. In the 2021-22 Conference League, they humiliated Roma 6-1 in the group stage before drawing them 2-2 at the Olimpico in the return. Pitted against the Giallorossi again in the quarterfinal, they won again in the first leg, 2-1, before Roma finally brought down the hammer with a 4-0 win in the second. Last year they came a whisker from the Champions League league phase, losing 3-2 on aggregate to Red Star Belgrade in the playoff round before advancing to the semifinals of the Europa League. On their way, they knocked Lazio out of the competition in the quarterfinal on penalties in the Olimpico.
All but seven of Glimt’s players are domestic (there are also five Danes, a Russian and a Swede), and the talent gap between them and Juve is significant. Juve should win this game—but a lot of Italian teams have said that about this club in the past. They’ll have to be taken seriously.
Pafos
Never played in a competitive match
Pafos is a very young club, having been founded only 11 years ago after the merger of AEP Paphos and AEK Kouklia. They won their first Cyprian title last season and worked their way through qualifying, beating Maccabi Tel Aviv, Dynamo Kyiv, and Red Star Belgrade on the way through.
All respect to the Cyprian champions, if Juventus do anything except flatten them at home it will be a colossal failure. Pafos have a rather multicultural roster with some players who have seen big moments. Forward Bruno Felipe was on the Sheriff Tiraspol team that shocked the world when they beat Real Madrid in the Bernabeu in 2021 (he played in the game as a sub), and their big summer signing was David Luiz—yes, that one. But Juve outclasses them in all respects, and there’s absolutely no way that they should do anything other than beat them and beat them comprehensively. Anything else would be a Maccabi Haifa-level embarrassment.
AS Monaco
Head to head record: 4-1-1
Last played: 2016-17 Champions League Semfinal, won 4-1 on aggregate
After all the bad juju surrounding Benfica a while ago, here’s a more enjoyable fact: Juventus’ six games against Monaco have all come in Champions League knockout ties. In all three of those years, Juve has gone to the final. Most recently, they came together in the semifinals in 2017, when Juve was never seriously threatened over the two legs and Monaco’s only goal came from an emerging 18-year-old named Kylian Mbappe.
Good times.
This year’s game against the principality side will have one major storyline: the reunion matchup between Juve and Paul Pogba—provided, that is, he isn’t hurt by the time the match comes around. Denis Zakaria is another familiar name, as is Alekandr Golovin, who was a serious transfer target for Juve in 2018 before he opted for Monaco instead. Ansu Fati has also landed at Monaco in an attempt to resurrect his once-promising career.
Last year Monaco made it to the knockout playoffs before falling to Benfica. They finished at the head of a three-way dogfight for the last two French Champions League spots, finishing a point ahead of Nice and Lille in third. They’re at a higher level than your average Pot 4 team, but they’re also a team Juve will be favored to beat, even at the Stade Louis II.
