As we are all well aware of right now, Juventus’ injury situation is just about the opposite you would hope to see at any point in a season, let alone just three games into a new campaign. And yet, the number of players who could miss out on this weekend’s trip to Sassuolo is pushing double digits, with nearly an entire starting XI worth of players currently on the mend.
(Who would play in goal considering all three keepers are currently healthy? Well, I think we know who.)
While the majority of Juventus’ injuries are medium- or long-term varieties, there is a group of three players — Weston McKennie, Andrea Cambiaso and summer signing Pape Matar Sarr — that are very much more on the day-to-day monitoring phase of their work to return when it comes to training. As we get closer and closer to Juve’s trip to Sassuolo for Sunday night’s Serie A showdown at the Mapei, we know that only one player is at least partially training with the squad — and that is Sarr, who did just that on Thursday, according to multiple reports out of the Italian press.
The other two, McKennie and Cambiaso, are looking more and more likely to miss their third and second straight games, respectively, due to injury. So, that would mean Juventus’ injury situation only has the chance to include one less player at the most come this weekend unless something seriously changes during training on Friday and Saturday ahead of the departure for Reggio Emilia.
So unless Sarr does get included in his first matchday squad — or, in this case, traveling squad — since his loan move from Tottenham Hotspur on Deadline Day, Juventus manager Luciano Spalletti will be heading to face Sassuolo with just two senior team midfielders available: Douglas Luiz and Teun Koopmeiners. Next Gen midfielder Agosto Owusu is expected to be part of the senior team for the foreseeable future considering the long-term absence of captain Manuel Locatelli, but it is a case where there is absolutely no depth in the center of the park entering the first busy part of the 2026-27 season.
Of course, the schedule will only be busy for a short time before the first international break of the season — and one that will be three weeks long rather than the usual two-week span — with three weeks to played over the next eight days starting with the Sassuolo matchup on Sunday. Then there’s the Europa League opener against Dutch side NEC and Atalanta visiting Turin next Sunday evening before the break arrives.
Still, Sarr really does feel like the only one who could be included in the matchday squad the way things look right now. Maybe McKennie surprises us and gets some Harry Potter-like magic done to his current ailment, but that might be too much to ask as of now. So that means it’s the Douglas Luiz and Koopmeiners show, just as Cristiano Giuntoli tried to draw things up a couple of years ago. (And don’t worry, he’s here to tell you about it, too.)
Players we know will be out against Sassuolo are: Locatelli, Kenan Yildiz, Khephren Thuram, Jérémie Boga, Juan Cabal and Jeff Ekhator.
