So much of the 2024-25 season has been about what Juventus has been unable to do when trying to hold onto a lead. Dropped points aplenty as a result of being unable to hold said lead, and it has resulted in so many draws and a place in the standings where you even add in half of those dropped points Juve are very much in a different state compared to their current one.
On Sunday, it was Juventus being the team that came back. The fashion in which they had to do so was far from perfect — if it ever is when you fall behind in the fourth minute — but flipping the script sure was a change for the better at least.
Thanks a pair of goals from January arrival Randal Kolo Muani within the span of three minutes, Juventus flipped what was a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead. And what has happened so many times when Juve took a lead deep into the second half didn’t repeat itself at the Allianz Stadium this time around, with a makeshift defense able to hold onto the lead and Dusan Vlahovic and Francisco Conceição each adding a goal in the closing minutes to wrap up a 4-1 victory over visiting Empoli. It was the start to February that was very much needed after a January in which Juventus won just one of their seven games in all competitions — yes, even if it was a lunchtime kickoff that started about as bad as you could have thought.
It was certainly not always pretty — especially in the first half — but after the week that Juve just had in which it looked like they were struggling to do much right, a win and four goals against a team you struggled to score against back in September is at least somewhat of a step forward rather than another step back.
Not a big one considering Empoli haven’t won a game since the middle of December, but it is something — which is not always a thing we can say about this Juventus team.
The biggest thing is that they had a response, with Kolo Muani — who became the first player since Carlos Tevez to score in back-to-back games after signing with Juventus — very much doing what he was brought in to do. They were very different kinds of goals — the first showing his ability to shed a defender and score from a tight angle and the second very much deflecting a long-range shot from Timothy Weah a couple of minutes later.
Yet even after Juve took the lead, the same old theme of “Can Juventus actually hold onto this advantage?” probably came to the fore for just about everybody watching.
It’s only natural to think that way after Juventus have done what they have with so many points thrown away this season after leading. But not on this day, not against this Empoli side that are just a point above the relegation zone. Juve didn’t add to the 17 points that they’ve thrown away after being in the lead. (Add half that amount to Juve’s current point total and they’re in third place right behind Inter.)
Thankfully on this day Juventus didn’t thow a lead away.
Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully.
Maybe it all reverts back to what we’ve seen so much of this season next weekend against Como. Or maybe it looks something like what the opening weekend of the season when the vibes were much, much higher than they currently are.
At this point, it’s hard to say which Juventus we’ll get from half to half let alone game to game. You might get a Juve that’s trailing 1-0 at the break against Empoli and probably should have been down a couple of goals. Or you could see a Juve that scores four goals in a half like they did Sunday afternoon.
So, for now, I’ll just be happy Juve actually beat a team they should and needed to beat rather than doing what they did the first time around against Empoli.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- Kenan Yildiz with a head wrap against Benfica. Manuel Locatelli with a head wrap against Empoli. Who are we
- Of course Mattia De Sciglio were the first one to score on Sunday. The Ex Effect would have been working overtime if it ended up being De Sciglio’s goal that decided this one.
- Kolo Muani and Renato Veiga are now the two highest-rated players for Juventus season, according to WhoScored. Take that, haters! (Hey, if we can’t have at least a little fun with small sample sizes, then what fun can we actually have when given the chance?)
- It was a bit of a rocky start for Veiga in his Juventus debut, but he definitely settled in and played a pretty solid game on the whole. That one intervention to redirect a shot that was headed toward the bottom corner of Michele Di Gregorio’s goal certainly feels like a big moment when you look back on things.
- The fact that Juve’s fullback situation has Weah playing right back and now Nicolo Savona over on the left is still very much not a reassuring situation. So there’s that.
- Some of the passing numbers from Juventus’ attacking players … nto great.
- At least Kolo Muani scored a couple of goals because completing 53% of his passes against Empoli is not exactly something that we’d like to see become a regular thing.
- But those goals. Thank you for the goals, Randal.
- My two initial reactions after Vlahovic’s goal: He probably had no business taking that shot considering all of the other Juve players that were open at the top of the box (and calling for the ball!), and that celebration was a little muted considering all the chatter. Maybe the new, internal competition of Kolo Muani is something that is now going to push him. Or maybe it’s something else entirely as rumors about his future at Juve continue to fly. We’ll see.
- The xG on Vlahovic’s goal: 0.02.
- Hey, that was a pretty good game from Teun Koopmeiners. Been missing those where he fills up the stat sheet and comes to close to scoring a few nice goals. Get that left foot of his dialed in a little more and maybe we’ll finally see the real Koopmeiners. Maybe.
- That assist from Khephren Thuram to Conceição sure was pretty.
- I like when Nico Gonzalez plays well. Nico Gonzalez is quite fun when he plays well.
- All three of the subs Thiago Motta brought on had a goal contribution. That’s something that would be nice to see more of going forward.
- In conclusion, if Juventus had dropped points in a game in which De Sciglio was a goalscorer, it would have been the cherry on top of a rotten 2025. Just chef’s kiss.
