Saturday night was Juventus’ first visit to the Arena Garibaldi in nearly 12,800 days. In case you’re not able to do the quick math in your head — and who could blame you with that kind of number — that’s nearly 35 years, with a mid-January visit to Pisa in 1991 being the last time that the Bianconeri strolled into the quality atmosphere that this venue in Tuscany has to offer.
(Plus, those Kappa kits for the 1990-91 season were just a beautiful thing.)
It’s safe to say that this performance will not
go into the vault of all-time Juventus’ team showings. Or really anything close to it. For much of Saturday night’s 2-0 win over newly-promoted and 19th-place Pisa, it was a complete slog against an opponent who packed numbers and back defended with numbers very well. But for what this team needs more than just about anything — hint: it’s points — they eventually got the job done, and that is what Juve eventually secured when Kenan Yildiz’s seventh goal of the season in all competitions took much of the stress off a slim one-goal lead and saw Juventus jump into third place, albeit with those around them set to play on Sunday or Monday and also with at least one game in hand.
An overall not-great performance by Juventus still ended with these things being true:
- That’s three straight wins domestically since the bad loss to Napoli.
- That’s seven wins in the last eight games in all competitions, with the loss to Napoli being the only blemish.
- That’s win to close out the calendar year that just so happens to begin a string of fixtures against provincial sides before the Champions League comes back onto the schedule late in January.
I mean, let’s face it, it really could be a lot worse. Mainly because it was before Luciano Spalletti showed up in Turin.
Saturday night was not Spalletti’s best showing. Just as it wasn’t for Juventus. This was a slog, with the kind of first half that saw Juventus dominate for much of the opening 45 minutes only for Pisa to have two of the best scoring chances, including one shot that went off the woodwork. It wasn’t looking great. They had just six shots total. They had two just shots on goal and their xG was nothing to really boast about whatsoever. The lineup decisions that Spalletti made — namely Loïs Openda and Teun Koopmeiners — were not looking effective at all, and it’s not like there were a lot of positives coming out of such a sluggish first half to begin with.
But what Spalletti has done well since coming to Turin is to try and reverse course and make second-half adjustments as soon as he can. The introduction of Edon Zhegrova certainly helped, as evident as by what he did before, during and after the opening goal that we thought was originally scored by Pierre Kalulu but ultimately went down as an own goal. It was a change like Zhegrova that Juve desperately needed for some sort of presence and creativity spark on the right wing — and that’s exactly what happened almost immediately after he came on.
And yet, it was still a slog.
This wasn’t the kind of performance that we saw against Roma. Nor was it really expected to be knowing that Pisa have given some top teams a tough time already this season and just the simple way of how they play compared to Juve’s opponent last weekend. Pisa forced Juve to try and break them down — which proved to be a pretty difficult task for a good amount of the 90 minutes.
Thankfully, the own goal and then Yildiz’s icing on the cake ensured Juve will go into the new year on a nice little run of results and, at the very least, be within striking distance of the top four when they kick off their first game of 2026.
That’s more than we can say about what was happening when Spalletti first showed up. All progress isn’t linear, but the team keeps winning no matter if it’s in Serie A or in Europe — and that is what matters most around these parts.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- A team with a Buffon playing against Juventus? Sorry, this will take some getting used to.
- But seriously, when you’ve been around long enough as a fan to see your favorite player’s son play against his dad’s former club, you know you’re starting to get old. And it’s not just the gray hair telling me this.
- Good to see young Louis Thomas quickly meet a certain player named Gleison Bremer shortly after coming on.
- In what proved to be easily his quietest game in weeks, Kenan Yildiz still scored a goal.
- Yildiz was also routinely triple-teamed by Pisa’s defense. When’s the last time we could say that about a Juventus player? Been a little while.
- Then again, it’s easy to commit three defenders to a player of Yildiz’s ilk when every other attacking player — namely Openda and Koopmeiners — are doing next to nothing to add to the attack.
- That little move by Fabio Miretti right before Yildiz’s goal … now that was very nice. If only he trusted his left foot enough to actually shoot the ball after making such a nice move to dispatch of everybody.
- Jonathan David probably should have been the one to score that ball, but alas that’s just the kind of season he’s having right now. When it’s going wrong, it is sometimes always going wrong no matter what you’re trying to do.
- Pierre Kalulu is good and I’m glad he’s a Juventus player. He deserved a goal even if it was officially credited as an own goal. He’s been that good this season. His celebrations were that good after he thought he got the goal. And let’s not forget, this is a man who has played every single minute of every game that Juventus has played so far this season. Let’s get him a goal to open 2026.
- Outside of that silly tackle at the top of the box in the second half, Bremer had a very Bremer-like game. It’s so nice to have him back. Oh, and to not be scared about him suddenly being subbed off in the 60th minute.
- Seriously, Bremer playing the full 90 minutes was one of the biggest things to take out of this one.
- I sure would love for Zhegrova to get more minutes in his legs so that he can start and give Francisco Conceição a legit run for his money on the right wing. Plus, that would just be fun as hell to see Zhegrova play more often. But at least he’s making an impact off the bench as evident by what he did when he came on against Pisa.
- Michele Di Gregorio didn’t have to make a save against Pisa. Good thing his posts did, though.
- Pisa has a Calabresi playing in Tuscany. Interesting!
- Can we stop with Koopmeiners as an advanced midfielder? That’s three managers now where it just hasn’t worked at all.
- Manuel Locatelli’s tackle that got him a yellow card might have been one of the most telegraphed soon-to-be late tackles I’ve seen in a while. You just saw it coming a couple of seconds before it happened. One of the easiest calls of the night to make.
- Lloyd Kelly continues to prove pretty much all of us wrong. Is he the most improved Juventus player this season? I sure as hell am struggling to find somebody else to thrown in there.
- As much as we say about Zhegrova’s through ball that led to the opening goal, that cross from Weston McKennie was pretty good, too. Just another thing to add to the list of things he’s doing well right now.
- A win to close out 2025? Yeah, I’ll drink a glass of bourbon to that, friends.
