It’s another season for Juventus and for the Grab Bag!
Leave it to yours truly to dedicate about 1,200 words in a quasi-season preview talking about how Juventus was going to be pretty much the same team as the last year only for that whole thing to be completely irrelevant and wrong two weeks into the season.
Juventus started their 2025-26 effort with back-to-back wins against Parma and Genoa to place
themselves in a four-way tie at the top of the league with Napoli, Roma and … Cremonese? Why not! It is the dumbest international break after all, and the fact that Cremonese are in the Champions League spots tells you all the long-term conclusions you should be drawing from the first couple of games.
That being said, there is plenty that has changed for the Bianconeri since the season started and plenty of us to discuss in the inaugural Grab Bag of the new campaign.
Let’s cook.
Wheeling and Dealing
I will say this about Damien Comolli: That man has absolutely no issue with lying straight to the Italian media’s face. Just look below …
Just days after straight up saying there was nothing going on with Atletico Madrid for Nico Gonzalez, the Argentinian international was part of the flurry of late moves that Comolli and Co. pulled off in the dying moments of the summer transfer window to give a fresh new facelift to a Juventus squad that looked poised to remain pretty much the same as last year’s underachieving group.
Both Gonzalez and Douglas Luiz — two of the crown jewels of last year’s summer spending spree — were unceremoniously dumped just one season into their Juventus careers to Atletico Madrid and Nottingham Forest, respectively.
Between the swap deal to send Alberto Costa back to Portugal, not even attempting to bring back Renato Veiga and the long, protracted and arduous transfer saga to try and sign Randal Kolo Muani on a permanent basis that ended up going nowhere, that’s five significant moves from the previous regime that have been undone in one single window.
(I know Veiga and Kolo Muani were loans, but still, that’s five dudes with less than a year in black and white out of the team. Out with the old, I guess.)
To Comolli’s credit, it was clear that while he was busy doing his best poker face in front of the cameras, he had his team working overtime in the back room as the team moved swiftly to secure Edon Zhegrova and Lois Openda.
Zhegrova, who was signed over from Lille, comes in to directly replace Gonzalez’s minutes as an offensive Swiss-army knife type of player and Openda comes in with a similar profile to Kolo Muani but with lower wages and less punitive transfer fee.
(Both Openda and Kolo Muani are more similar than you think. They are both a couple years removed from truly great seasons, looking to bounce back from relatively poor follow ups and with a bit more flexibility than a straight up striker.)
The success or failure of the flurry of moves eventually will be about the actual results they produce in a few month’s time. Let us all remember that we all thought that Cristiano Giuntoli was, indeed, cooking. But there was still a lot to like about Comolli’s approach — especially with the Kolo Muani situation and the quick pivoting once PSG’s conditions got progressively worse and worse.
It was also interesting that Comolli ended up keeping the one guy that everyone was sure had already played his last game as a Juventus player. And yet …
Super-Sub Dusan
Maybe he was just being misused! Perhaps he just works better as a change of pace guy instead of a starter!
Of course, Dusan Vlahovic was going to score in back-to-back games to start the season and end up being the hero in Juventus’ win over Genoa last weekend. To be fair, Vlahovic does have a history of starting seasons strong and then tapering off, so you’ll forgive me if I’m still not quite yet all aboard the S/S Vlahovic here, but it is nice to see him take his demotion with some measure of stride and start performing well in his contract year.
(I do admit it would be an incredibly hilarious move from Vlahovic if he pulled a contract year Rabiot move and ended up leaving on a free to the Premier League after finally scoring over 20 goals in a season.)
I also think there is something to be said about internal competition. Last year, Vlahovic came into the season with absolutely nobody on the squad to even halfway threaten his starting spot. With Jonathan David coming into the squad — and scoring on debut himself! — there is an argument to be made that the extra pressure for minutes could light a fire under Juve’s struggling striker.
Whatever the case may be, Vlahovic has played well early in the season. And getting maximum points to start a season is always nice.
Rising Tide Lifts all Boats
Turns out having the best defender in the league back is a good thing — who knew?
We got used to the absence of Gleison Bremer last season and, as a result, the defense leaking dumb goals left and right. But it only took two games for everyone to remember what a massive impact having a player of the caliber of Bremer back in the middle of the backline has for this team.
I was openly worried that we would get a relatively reduced version of the Brazilian centerback this year. ACL injuries are notorious for taking slightly longer to fully recover but Bremer is showing no signs of rust as he has played tremendously well in his first couple of games back.
Bremer hasn’t only been good individually, but his presence has lifted other players around him as well. You need to look no further than everyone’s least favorite January transfer, Lloyd Kelly, who was a sure thing to make back-breaking mistakes every single time out last season and who is now suddenly looking serviceable with an elite defender pairing him.
Any scenario in which Juventus are halfway competitive this season involves Bremer performing back to his usual standard. Early returns are promising to say the least.
Parting Shot of the Week
With new signings under the belt and an early season hot start, the mood for Juventus is pretty high as we settle in the first international break of the season.
All things considered, Igor Tudor will have a pretty complete squad to try an turn the tide of the last few seasons. Only time will tell if this hot start is just that or if it’s the foundation of a season that will end up proving a lot of people wrong.
At least it’s fun that I don’t have to watch Nico Gonzalez suit up for Juventus anymore, so there’s that!
See you next time.
