By the time Juventus take the field on Sunday night, it will have been five weeks since they last claimed all three points in a single Serie A outing. OK, so some (or a lot) of that has to do with the fact that we had a lengthy international break thrown in, but the facts are the facts and Juventus haven’t won a league fixture in over a month.
And as they have seen another couple of regular starters go down injured coming out of their first Europa League draw of the season, it’s hard to keep any sort
of upbeat theme to this preview. (If there ever was one to begin with.)
Then you see the latest injury update. Then you see where Juventus are in the Serie A table following Saturday’s fixtures. Then you are reminded about all of it — and nothing positive comes to mind … again.
So with Saturday’s fixtures over and done with, Juventus will go into the day in which their Matchday 8 game is on in an astounding 10th place in the Serie A table. It is a clear reflection of both their form the last couple of weeks coming out of the international break, but also their form in the last five games since winning back-to-back games to open the season. Juventus currently sit at the very definitely of middle-of-the-table right now, and they will be looking to record just their second win in their last six Serie A games when they face Lecce on Sunday at the Via del Mare. It’s a Lecce side that has more losses (4) than wins (3) so far this season, but is just two points behind Luciano Spalletti’s squad in the table.
Hello, this is your reminder of how rough of a start to the season this has suddenly become.
Winning can mask some of your issues because you’re banking three points at the same time. But when you’re playing like Juventus are and not winning, then those issues become even more of a contributor than before.
Then you throw in the fact that Juventus will be without nine players — many of them would likely be starting this game — and it just makes the situation just that much tougher to try and dig yourself out of no matter who you are playing.
Lecce obviously aren’t the level of opponent that Lazio were a week earlier. But they’re also a team that has taken points off Juventus twice in their last four head-to-head meetings. Lecce are not the slam dunk that you probably think they are to be, and rather surprisingly are not the total defensive dumpster fire that most Eusebio Di Francesco teams of recent variety have usually been.
And if you want to look at the form guide and nothing but that, you know who has more wins in their last five league games than Juventus does? Yeah, it’s Lecce, with wins over Monza and more recently Udinese on each side of the international break.
Can Juve hang their hat on the fact that Lecce have not been very good at home with one win in three to begin the season? Maybe, but at this point it’s pretty hard to determine if any statistical aspects actually favor Juventus. (Unless they were suddenly going to be up against Lecce’s primavera team because there’s some sort of massive stomach virus going through the senior team’s locker room this weekend.) Juventus’ away form in Serie A this season includes just one win, one draw and a loss in three games, so it’s not like it’s all that impressive, either.
Despite all of these injuries, Spalletti will have to find some sort of way to get this team winning again. They can’t afford, both in terms of their mental fragility and just simple table position, to drop more points against a provincial side. We’ve seen it happen already this season, and this is what hurt Spalletti so many times in the second half of last season even though they were still in the race for the top four. (Don’t ask how that turned out.)
Juventus desperately need a win on Sunday evening. That is the easy part to figure out because we all know it (and then some). The not-so-easy part is actually sitting through 90-plus minutes of seeing them try and achieve that much-needed respite from the ills of their last handful of games. They should, probably, be coming off a third straight win in the Europa League, but they aren’t, so that means that European mojo they’ve tried to build off of this season won’t be there.
Let’s just hope that performance on this Sunday is much better than the last one. Because if it’s not, then a very bad result against a team that is not nearly as good as (league-leading?!?!?!) Lazio will only see the heat on Spalletti and this team turned up even more. Which is the last thing they need to see happen these days.
TEAM NEWS
- More injuries? Yeah, more injuries! Ain’t it such a good time to be looking for possible help and respite from whatever it is we have been watching lately …
- As we found out on Friday, Zeki Çelik and Nico González will be out injured for the next couple of weeks (at minimum) with their respective muscle injuries.
- Francisco Conceição is also out after separating his shoulder against Lazio.
- That means they join the list of the long-term injuries: Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Khephren Thuram, Jeff Ekhator and Kamil Grabara.
- Luciano Spalletti did not hold a pre-match press conference prior to the team’s departure for Lecce, so we don’t really know where things stand when it comes to the players who are actually healthy.
- That being said, with all of the injuries and the players who are actually available, it seems like a pretty good lock that Spalletti will stick with a three-man backline against Lecce. Let’s see how it all plays out.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
Considering we haven’t seen Juan Cabal play a second of football so far this season, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the pecking order in the absence of Zeki Çelik is one that doesn’t really involve the Colombian fullback.
That means it’s time for Andrea Cambiaso to get more minutes than he has at any point this season.
And that, in a lot of ways, could be a dangerous proposition — especially when you consider how he played on the defensive end of things just a few days earlier.
Let me go ahead and remind you what our match ratings said about Cambiaso following the 2-2 draw with Stade Rennais on Thursday night to go along with his rating of 4 …
Looked really horrific on defense on multiple occasions. His marking on Stade Rennais’ first goal was awful, and he made a mistake that very nearly gifted them a 3-1 lead midway through the first half. Nothing he did with the ball came close to making up for it.
Yeah, that’s not good. And it’s not like Sam was all that wrong at all in his assessment of how rough Cambiaso’s outing — especially on defense — was a couple of days ago.
Cambiaso was supplanted a starting role he has had for the better part of the last half-decade by a new signing who hasn’t really played much left back over his career for a reason — he hasn’t been very good lately. Or for the last 18 months after since the Manchester City rumors came about and then his ankle injury happened and it took him months and months to fully return to full fitness. Since that point in time — and especially the last 12 months or so — Cambiaso has not been the same player that was easily one of the better performers under Thiago Motta.
But with Çelik out until at least the international break, Spalletti will have to (in theory) rely on Cambiaso on the left wing. (Because if Cabal not playing a single minute so far this season tells you anything, it’s just how far down on the depth chart he is since coming back from injury.)
We know that Cambiaso can be a contributor to the attacking phase of the game. Just look at his assist to Randal Kolo Muani against Celta Vigo as the latest example of that. He can do some good things when he’s out there. But it’s the defensive phase is his game that is by far the most worrying thing whenever he takes the field. It was on display against Stade Rennais — and that’s just the latest example in a long list of them.
So as Juventus’ fragile defensive state takes the field once again on Sunday, it’s now going to be doing it with a player in Cambiaso who is a clear downgrade from the man he is replacing. Not what you want to hear as your team is in desperate need of a win this weekend.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026.
Where: Stadio Via del Mare, Lecce, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 6 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 1 p.m. Eastern time, 12 p.m. Central time, 10 a.m. Pacific time.
(Please note that the fall time change in Italy goes into effect on Sunday, meaning Juventus’ game may kick off an hour later than the usual 6 p.m. window does.)
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TLN (Canada); Sky Sport Calcio, Sky Sport 251 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, Peacock, Telemundo Deportes En Vivo (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italia, 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. Engage with Black & White & Read All Over’s match threads from your phone with the new SB Nation app. Commenting and interacting with your communities is easier than ever before with the Game Chat feature. The app is available currently in the U.S. on iOS and Android devices.
