As Luciano Spalletti heads into his second game as Juventus manager, he can still count on one hand how many training sessions he has had with his new club. The simple fact of when he took over for Igor Tudor and how unrelenting the schedule can be for a club playing domestically and in Europe means that new managers are simply thrown right into without much time to actually train the squad that they have taken over.
Spalletti got the domestic debut with Juve out of the way over the weekend. Now,
it’s time for him to make his return to the Champions League with his new squad that has — gasp! — suddenly won back-to-back games.
It comes at a time in which Juventus need points in Europe in the worst possible way. The Bianconeri enter Matchday 4 of the UCL league phase on the outside looking in of the play-off round qualification places. That is not a mistake — if the league phase had ended after three games, Juve wouldn’t even have the chance to try and get into the Champions League Round of 16, with their current standing of 25th place meaning they’re the first club out on the cutting room floor. So as Portuguese side Sporting make their way to Turin, the need for three points in Europe is feeling especially important — especially with everything that has happened ever since Juve’s last Champions League fixture two weeks ago in Spain.
Spalletti can still count how many training sessions he’s had with his new team, yet he’s about to take control of hs second game come Tuesday night. And as much as the debut against Cremonese was important, this one might be even more of the case or else Juve’s situation in the Champions League will be looking even the more dire than it already is after losing to Real Madrid. Juventus are in 25th place — right outside of the play-off spots that take up ninth through 24th. Sporting, in a much more favorable spot, sit 14 places above Juve after claiming a win over Marseille two weeks ago.
Meeting Sporting was always going to be viewed as a tough challenge even with it being in Turin. But now, with Juve’s form in Europe and just overall before Spalletti’s arrival, takes on an even great task for the new Bianconeri boss.
In his career, Spalletti doesn’t have what some would call a “good” record in the Champions League. He’s managed 67 games in Europe’s premier club competition, but has only won 29 of them and lost 23, gaining an average of 1.52 points per match. That’s … not great.
Spalletti’s most recent season in the Champions League coincided with his title-winning season with Napoli. They advanced to the UCL quarterfinals, only to fall to Serie A rival AC Milan. In that season, Napoli was one of the more impressive squads in Europe, with Spalletti winning seven of the 10 games Napoli played. It was also the furthest a Spalletti-coached team had advanced in the Champions League since his Roma squad made the quarterfinals in the 2027-08 campaign.
Juventus might not be hoping for those immediate kind of results considering he’s been on the job for less than a week as he prepares to face Sporting, but the view is that getting into a much more comfortable position in Europe over the next month or two is possible.
That means it has to start against Sporting and at least get to a point where Juventus has more points in Europe compared to games played this season. They’re sitting on two points in three games so far, with zero wins to their name. That’s worse than what Thiago Motta did to start the European campaign last season — and we know how that run in the Champions League ended up going.
Spalletti was pleased with his team’s effort against Cremonese, one of Serie A’s biggest early-season surprises. But he was also quick to say after Saturday night’s win just how much there is to still improve — which is a given or else he probably wouldn’t be in this position and hired by Juventus in the first place. He pretty much reaffirmed those thoughts during Monday’s pre-match conference.
“I’m pleased with the choices made in Cremona, because I got responses that allow me to work better with the guys. Tomorrow evening it will be a complicated match, they have a group that knows how to play football well, they know how to stay on the pitch: they often change roles and tasks during the match and they have a lot of quality in tight spaces in the attacking third.”
A win in Spalletti’s debut was important — and nobody more than the new Juve coach himself will tell you that. The winless streak was put to bed at midweek, but a second straight win and Spalletti arriving and donning his nice new Armani suit has helped this squad start to rid itself of what has happened over the previous two months. Of course, more dropped points against Sporting might have us saying otherwise, but Spalletti does recognize that a win over Cremonese is something good to build off of now that the squad shifts its attention back to European play.
And if things go the way they did over the weekend, then Juve could actually get their first European win of the season — which, considering it’s now November, probably needs to happen soon no matter who is manager.
TEAM NEWS
- The good news from the final training session before Sporting arrives in Italy: Kenan Yildiz is back with the rest of the group and Spalletti confirmed at his pre-match press conference that Juve’s No. 10 is available to play on Tuesday night.
- The other new injury that was forced to miss the trip to Cremona over the weekend, defender Lloyd Kelly, was not part of Monday’s training session and is a major doubt to face Sporting.
- The other injured players are no surprises: Gleison Bremer, Juan Cabal and Carlo Pinsoglio. (Remember, Arek Milik is not part of the squad for the UCL league phase, but is still injured because of course he is.)
- With Kelly likely to be unavailable, Tuen Koopmeiners is expected to play in the back three once again just as he did in the win over Cremonese. (That is not something I expected to type a week ago, people. Seriously, had no idea at all.)
- Spalletti admitted just how important the wins over Udinese and Cremonese were from a mental standpoint, saying: The two wins that these boys earned on their own in recent days allow us to face a great team like Sporting CP with a different spirit.”
- Spalletti said Dusan Vlahovic currently has “a bit of an advantage” over the other strikers on the roster “because he knows what’s expected here at Juventus when you step onto the pitch wearing this jersey.”
- Juventus and Sporting last played each other during the knockout round of the Europa League in 2023.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about a certain Dutchman in relatively positive terms. But coming out of Juventus’ win over Cremonese at the weekend, I feel like we can maybe do that again even with the incredibly small sample size.
Could Luciano Spalletti have maybe figured something out when it comes to Teun Koopmeiners? Considering all that he’s been through since coming to Juventus late last summer and the simple price tag that is attached to his name every time it’s brought up, let’s sure as hell hope so.
Spalletti discovered something in playing Koopmeiners as a very deep-lying playmaker that is in the back three. The thinking behind it was that as Khephren Thuram went on his forward runs, Koopmeiners would be able to fill that space and utilize his strengths to his advantage rather than being shoehorned into positions further up the field like Thiago Motta and Igor Tudor did in his first 16 months at Juventus.
For one game, at least, it worked.
And with Kelly out injured, we’re likely to see it again.
It’s the biggest tactical twist that Spalletti has made during his extremely short time at Juventus thus far. Was something like this expected right off the block? No, not at all. Guessing the amount of people who were expecting Koopmeiners to line up in Juventus’ back three against Cremonese can be counted with both hands and that’s it. Hell, when I first saw the formation update in the early minutes of Saturday night’s game on WhoScored, I thought their technology was a bit drunk and there was a glitch in things. There wasn’t.
Playing Koopmeiners deeper in midfield — or, in this case, in defense — is something Spalletti specifically pointed out during his introductory press conference last week. Maybe we should have keyed in on it a little bit more as a hint to what he was thinking for the weekend, but nobody was really thinking it outside of him recognizing the Dutchman’s talents. Now, we’re all waiting to see what he can do in the backline once again.
Oh, it’s funny how things change so quickly sometimes, right? Koopmeiners potentially being important as a defender is certainly nobody had on their bingo card for this season, let alone with Spalletti calling the shots and doing it right out of the gate as manager.
Continue to make it look like a smart decision, Teun. Pleasant surprises are always welcome around here.
MATCH INFO
When: Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
Where: Juventus Stadium, Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, p.m. Eastern time, 2 p.m. Central time, 1 p.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TNT Sports 4 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 252 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada; Amazon Prime Video; Fubo Sports Network Canada (Canada); 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.
