Juventus entered the final month of the 2024-25 season with two big showdowns in the race for the top four, with Bologna and Lazio on the schedule within the span of eight days. It was looked at as a potential do-or-die scenario for the Bianconeri and their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League next season simply because things were so tightly packed that any sort of slip-up would result in somebody overtaking them.
Yet, despite getting all of two points out of a possible six, Juventus are still in fourth place and still in control of their own destiny when it comes to playing in Europe’s premier club competition next season.
Juventus, no matter how shorthanded they will be this weekend, can technically clinch fourth place with a win over Udinese this Sunday night in Turin. To do that, however, they will need a lot of help. So much help that it’s easier to just list it here rather than the alternative. So, Juventus will clinch a spot in the Champions League if the following happens this weekend:
- Juve beat Udinese
- Inter Milan beat Lazio
- AC Milan beat Roma
- Fiorentina beat Bologna
OK, that’s a lot that needs to happen for Champions League qualification not to be a talking point heading into the season finale next weekend. And it seems incredibly unlikely with how rotten Juve’s luck has seemingly been for much of this 2024-25 campaign.
But wait. Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me I will actually have to root for Inter to win this weekend? Is that actually going to have to happen if Juve want another big bit of help when it comes to a side from Rome that they’re tied on points with and competing for a spot in the Champions League?
OK, so let’s just do it this way: We’re going to root for Not Lazio to win rather than just come out and say we hope Inter stay in the Serie A title race going into the final weekend of the season. That sounds better. That is basically saying we want Lazio to lose rather than saying we want Inter to win. See how I did that? It all worked out.
But no matter how you spin it, the fact is that Juventus are still in the driver’s seat to finish in fourth place. I don’t know how based on the last couple of weeks and the 2024-25 season in general, but they are. They win the final two games of the season, they are in the Champions League next year. They continue to drop any sort of points against Udinese and then Venezia, and qualifying for the Champions League is very much at major risk of not happening.
Somehow, despite recording two points out of a possible six in their last two games, Juventus are still in control of their own Champions League destiny. It’s hard to get it, but even as they’ve failed to pick up wins the last couple of weeks, they’ve seen other results fall their way, too.
Which, in a way, makes it all the more frustrating that they haven’t been able to actually take full advantage of the craziness going on immediately behind them in the standings.
So against a Udinese side that is basically playing for pride at this point — they’re sitting in 12th entering the weekend and at no risk of being relegated — and has only won one game since the first day of March, Juventus will try and avoid a third straight draw.
With so many players out due to injuries and suspension, it’s hard to say what kind of shape this Juventus team will come into Sunday with. They know what they have to do to get into the Champions League next season, but that’s also something we could have said for so many weeks prior. Udinese are not at the level of Bologna and Lazio, sure, but we’ve seen this Juventus team play down to their opponents plenty of times before.
They do that again Sunday, then the chance to control their own destiny probably isn’t there as the new work week begins. With every contender for the top four playing at the same time this weekend, it will have a feel of those not playing probably trying to not scoreboard watch — or, probably in this case, tablet watch through an assistant coach — too much compared to the alternative.
For now, though, Juve just need to take care of business on their home front for the final time this season. Because the last thing we want to see happen is Juve entering the final week of the season trying to qualify for the Champions League and avoid a record where they finish with more draws than wins.
TEAM NEWS
- As one two-match ban comes to an end and Juventus welcome back Kenan Yildiz, they have seen Pierre Kalulu’s season finish up a couple of weeks early after he was suspended for his red card against Lazio.
- Adding insult to injury (or suspension): Khephren Thuram and Nicolo Savona are also suspended this weekend after they both picked up a yellow card in the draw with Lazio.
- Teun Koopmeiners is still out injured with the Achilles injury he picked up last month against Lecce.
- There’s also the three season-ending injuries: Gleison Bremer, Juan Cabal and Arek Milik.
- Andrea Cambiaso and Lloyd Kelly are both expected to be back in the squad after missing last week’s draw with Lazio due to their respective muscle injuries. Both players trained with the rest of the group on Saturday.
- Federico Gatti’s status is a bit unknown after he reportedly trained separate from the group on Saturday. Gatti was only able to come on late in Juve’s 1-1 draw with Lazio in his first appearance since breaking a bone in his heel last month.
- Tudor confirmed at his pre-match press conference that Juventus will likely call up some players from the Next Gen squad to give them a little bit more depth to fill out the bench. The Juve Next Gen season came to an end in the Serie C playoffs on May 7.
- Four Juventus players are at risk of suspension for the season finale against Venezia if they pick up a yellow card this weekend: Cambiaso, Manuel Locatelli, Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah.
- Juventus will be wearing their new home kit for the 2025-26 season when they take rhe field for their final home game of the 2024-25 campaign.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
… There’s at least a few options to choose from, right?
Yeah, I think so. Although it definitely doesn’t feel that way these days with all of injuries and suspensions. But I guess that just makes things a little easier to figure out for this section … or something like that.
That’s especially true in defense where the limited options may well mean that Tudor is forced to go away from his preferred three-man backline.
Photo by Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images
No matter what formation Tudor ends up going with, it’s prety easy to figure out that Renato Veiga will be a key part of it. That’s simply because there aren’t many other central defenders available to face Udinese this weekend. Even if Kelly returns to the fold after training with the group on Saturday, Juve will have just two center backs available — and who knows just how up to speed the on-loan Englishman is.
So, with all of that added into the equation, it’s pretty clear that Tudor needs Veiga — in what will probably be his final home game as a Juventus player with his short-term loan deal coming to an end soon — to be the leader at the back for at least one weekend.
(Then again, Juve’s true leader at the back hasn’t played since early October, so it’s not like this is anything new to this club this season.)
The thing that has hampered Juventus’ defense all season long has been the one moment of execution in which things suddenly go wrong. We saw it against Lazio last weekend, with Veiga playing his part in seeing Juve’s lead go away in the final minute after battling down a man for much of the second half.
With Tudor trying to operate within such fine margins, it’s those kinds of things that Veiga — and Juventus’ defense as a whole — need to avoid at all costs. Whether they can do that or not remains to be seen, but a player who has done relatively well since coming to Turin will need to have just a couple more positive performances before he heads back to London if his current team wants to achieve the bare minimum of seasonal goals.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, May 18, 2025.
Where: Allianz Stadium Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 8:45 p.m. in Italy and the Central European time zone, 7:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, 11:45 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: No TV options in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom or Italy.
Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); fuboTV Canada (Canada); OneFootball.com (United Kingdom); DAZN Italia, 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 Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.
