Out of all the Serie A draws that Juventus have been a part of this season — and there’s been a lot so sometimes it’s hard to keep track — there are few that have felt anything other than complete frustration. There have blown leads, scoreless efforts in front of goal, pretty much everything you can think of has gone into Juve dropping so many stinkin’ points on their way to 13 draws in their first 24 league fixtures.
But one of those is very much not like the other. There is one draw that has not felt like a total disappointment. Instead, very much the kind of draw that had you potentially hoping that maybe, just maybe, it was a sign this new-look squad could hang with the big boys once again.
Since that insane Kenan Yildiz-inspired comeback and 4-4 draw with Inter Milan at the San Siro back in October, Juventus’ season has not gone on the kind of trajectory that we hoped a result and fightback like we saw that night could kick into gear. Instead, the draws only continued to come at a more frequent pace, and certainly not in the same kind of fashion of the one against Inter.
So now, with Inter competing for another Scudetto and Juventus very much now in a fight that could end up involving as many as four or five clubs to finish in fourth place and a Champions League position, they meet again as the venue shifts to the Allianz Stadium in Turin. It comes during a stretch in which Juventus have put back-to-back wins together in Serie A for just the third time this season but the overall performance level of Thiago Motta’s squad still leaves plenty to be desired. Sunday night’s matchup at the Allianz is very much one of the biggest remaining fixtures on the schedule and also a chance to show that they can actually claim a big win over a big club in Italy.
There’s also this: On top of the back-to-back wins in Serie A, Juve have won three straight games in all competitions for the first time this season. That’s not something you necessarily want to say about your team for the first time as we sit here in the middle of February, but that is the result of all of these damn draws stacking up on top of one another like they have for Juventus.
Does that mean Juventus have started to put something together? At this point, it’s pretty impossible to say because just when you think they might be starting to turn a corner they seem to always take another step or two back and we’re left to wonder if they will ever kick into gear.
“The team is doing well, winning always brings extra energy,” Motta said at his pre-match press conference. “I see the lads motivated and I also feel energized.”
What we do know is that while Juventus were playing yet another midweek fixture Tuesday night in the first leg of the Champions League play-off round against PSV Eindhoven, Inter players were likely kicking their feet up and enjoying a glass or two of a nice wine. Simone Inzaghi’s side is the more rested squad, and that’s even before Saturday’s news that they’ve received a big boost with leading scorer Marcus Thuram deemed fit to play after having to come off in their win over Fiorentina on Monday.
That means another Thuram derby between Marcus’ Inter and Khephren’s Juve is very much in the cards, but it is not much of the storyline like it was the first time around in October.
The main theme going into Sunday night really is if this little winning run Juventus currently find themselves on will prove to be the much-needed confidence this team has been lacking. A big fixture like this, one of the most-heated atmospheres Motta’s squad will face the rest of this season, can either be a huge boost or — like what we saw last season around this time of the year — be a big blow to the confidence level of the entire squad.
With Lazio holding Napoli to their third straight draw — hey look, somebody else can do that, too! — there is a chance Juventus can jump into fourth place with a win over the reigning Serie A champions. Whether Juve can do it or not is anybody’s guess.
But we know that, amidst all of the chaos, Juve can play even with Inter on a certain night. Yes, that was four months ago and so much has happened between then and now, but we don’t have to look all that far back on Inter’s schedule to show that they are beatable.
So thank you, Fiorentina, for giving this guy a little bit more hope as compared to how I’ve been feeling about Juventus’ chances in this game for much of the 2025 calendar year.
TEAM NEWS
- The good injury news between the last time Juventus played and this one: Andrea Cambiaso returned to training on Friday. Although he’s not expected to start against Inter, it will be nice to have an actual left back available again.
- The not-so-good injury news between the last time Juventus played and this one: Douglas Luiz will miss the Derby d’Italia due to muscle fatigue he reported after Thursday’s training session. It’s just another setback for a player who has already had many of them this season.
- Winter signing Lloyd Kelly was forced to miss training Friday due to illness. It’s still unsure what his status will be for Sunday’s game against Inter.
- Pierre Kalulu is still out due to the hamstring injury he suffered against Napoli on Jan. 25. We’re well past the “reevaluation in 10 days’ time” portion of the recovery period, so it will be quite important to see just how much longer Kalulu will actually be out for.
- The other injured players are the same ones we’ve mentioned for months now: Gleison Bremer, Juan Cabal and Arek Milik.
- What’s a key to potentially beating Inter on Sunday night in Motta’s mind? This is what he had to say about that: “To win, as I said, we have to work well together and earn it on the pitch. We have to earn victory, we have to always go for it.”
JUVENTUS TO WATCH
During the midweek Champions League preview, we discussed one half of Juventus’ American contingent. So it would only be fitting that going into a big weekend, we talk about the other half.
Who am I to disagree with my line of thinking, right? So let’s talk some Timo.
Photo by Grzegorz Wajda/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The experiment of Timothy Weah as a fullback has been more out of necessity compared to anything else. Andrea Cambiaso has been out injured the last few weeks, Nicolo Savona is dealing with a pubalgia injury that has severely limited his minutes after he played for much of the first four months of the season. And, on top of it all, we’re still waiting for Alberto Costa to make his Juventus debut after he arrived from Vitória de Guimarães in January.
That has left Motta with extremely limited options at the fullback spot — which is something we can pretty much say about all of the defense ever since Bremer’s ACL went kaboom a couple of weeks before Juve’s first matchup with Inter this season.
We’re four games into the Weah as a right back experiment — and that is something that is expected to continue in Sunday night’s Derby d’Italia. In those four games, we’ve seen varying degrees of how well it’s worked out, with the most recent appearance in defense against PSV being the best of the bunch, especially when it came to his ability to add a presence in the attacking phase.
But, a lot like we’ve said when Weston McKennie was moonlighting as a makeshift fullback in previous weeks, there is the very obvious risk of playing somebody who isn’t a natural in that position and asking them to do something they’re not used to doing. Weah has made his share of mistakes during his time at fullback, and this weekend he will be asked to try and slow down arguably the best wingback in Serie A in Federico Dimarco.
That is a tall task for any natural fullback or wingback.
For a player like Weah who still has a very limited amount of experience as a makeshift fullback following so many appearances this season in attack? Yeah, that’s a big ask.
The hope is that Weah continues to feel more comfortable as a fullback the more he plays there. We don’t know how much longer this experiment will continue because Juve’s fullback situation is very much not a deal that is all that easy to figure out, but they will need Weah to show signs of improvement like he did against PSV Eindhoven to prevent the likes of Dimarco and others from running wild Sunday night.
MATCH INFO
When: Sunday, Feb. 16, 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: TLN (Canada).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network (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.
