As Juventus put their final touches on their preparations for last month’s Europa League opener, they knew two things that were very much the truth:
- They were coming off a very frustrating result over the weekend.
- The opponent they were facing could provide them to try and cure some of their ills of said weekend result.
Now, as Juve head to Spain for their second Europa League game of the 2026-27 season, we can safely say that the result at the weekend was also of the frustrating variety. Whether the European opponent they’re set to line up against can cure some of those lingering feelings about what happened in Sardinia still remains to be seen.
Juventus played their Europa League opener at the friendly confines of the J Stadium last month. However, when they play their second Europa League fixture of this league phase against Celta Vigo, it will come in a very different kind of atmosphere. Of the nearly 25,000 in attendance at the Estadio Municipal de Balaídos on Thursday, the vast majority of them will be rooting for Juventus to replicate what they did over the weekend — at the bare minimum. That means for Luciano Spalletti’s squad, they will look to do what they did the first time around in Europe this season — play much better than they did a few days earlier against domestic opposition.
Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it?
If only Celta Vigo were looked at as being on the same level as NEC Nijmegen …
But they aren’t — and that means this Thursday night in the Europa League will be a whole lot tougher than the last one.
Want a reminder what the end result of the first Europa League outing of the season was? Here ya go!
That’s right, folks. Juventus have been atop the Europa League table for almost an entire month now. That is mainly because we’ve gone nearly a full month in between Europa League fixtures thanks to the extended international break (that wasn’t much of a break for many), but those standings above are not some sort of AI fever dream that we suddenly just cooked up.
Now that Juve are at the top, it’s about trying to stay around that place.
The general line of thinking when the fixture list was first confirmed and we knew who Juve would be facing in the Euorpa League league phase, that their first three or four European fixtures of the season would probably be tougher than the previous one. Facing Celta Vigo would be more challenging than NEC. Facing Rennes — who currently sit third in Ligue 1 — would be just the same if not tougher than Celta. And then the meeting with AZ Alkmaar in early November would probably be the toughest of that quartet.
So, of course, here’s the first step up from NEC to Celta Vigo.
On paper, Celta Vigo has not started the season out all too well. They’ve had a very Thiago Motta-like start to the season in the sense that they’ve had draw … after draw … after draw … after draw domestically. Through their first eight games of the La Liga campaign, Celta Vigo has eight draws. Eight! Admittedly, they have not all been wild results — just look at their goalless draw from this past weekend against Elche. But, a lot like Juventus, they are a team that has not exactly found a consistent groove so far this season. (Unless you want to count all the draws as a groove — which you are welcome to do, of course.)
Celta Vigo opened their Europa League campaign with a 1-0 loss to Cypriot First Division champions Omonoia.
So no matter how fired up Celta Vigo’s stadium will be on Thursday night to face Juventus — and it very much will be because you wouldn’t expect anything else — Juventus do have a good chance to make it 2-for-2 to start their own Europa League campaign. It likely won’t be an easy one, won’t be straightforward and ain’t be simple. But Juve can do what they did last month and use a European opponent to try and get back on the horse.
They did it in September. Now they try and repeat that a month later.
- Thankfully, there were no surprises when Spalletti released his 20-man traveling squad for the trip to Spain. That means the players you expected to miss out on Thursday’s game are in fact out against Celta Vigo.
- Those players are: Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Khephren Thuram, Jérémie Boga, Jeff Ekhator and Karim Grabara.
- Also not on the flight to Spain to face Celta Vigo was Edon Zhegrova because, as a reminder, he was not included on the Europa League squad list for the league phase.
- Unlike over the weekend when he had to serve a suspension from his time back in Brazil, new Juventus backup goalkeeper Neto has made the trip to Spain and will be available in case something happens to Guglielmo Vicario. (Which, for the record, we hope doesn’t actually take place.)
- In a way that is unique to how Spalletti speaks, he said that there will be squad rotation taking place against Celta Vigo. Considering this is the first midweek fixture of the big nine-game stretch and there’s a red-hot Lazio waiting for Juve at the weekend, this isn’t a surprise at all.
- When it comes to squad rotation in the Europa League, Spalletti said the following: “This competition allows us to give playing time to those who feature less regularly. I need to let other lads rest and recharge their batteries, and it gives us the chance to watch other players and discover what is in the squad.”
- Spalletti was quick to also point out that players like Federico Gatti and Nick Woltemade “deserve a chance based on what they’ve shown when given the opportunity.”
- There is a chance that Zeki Çelik, who has started every game so far this season, doesn’t get the start against Celta Vigo after training separately for pretty much all of Tuesday’s final training session before the team left for Spain. If Çelik can’t play, it will almost certainly be Andrea Cambiaso making his first start of the season at left back or left wingback.
- Juventus and Celta Vigo last played in the round of 16 of the UEFA Cup during the 1999-2000 campaign. We won’t talk about what happened — especially in the second leg of the two-legged tie — because it wasn’t pretty. That’s all you need to know.
During his pre-match press conference, Spalletti pointed out that players “for example” like a certain large German deserve to get a shot at some more playing time because they’ve done well in previous opportunities.
Let’s talk about the big German that many folks are expecting to come into the starting lineup on Thursday night.
Now, it’s fair to say that Woltemade has not come into his first few weeks as a Juventus player and hit the ground running. As much as he scored in his first start in a Juve shirt, that’s not the huge determining factor when it comes to how he’s played thus far. It’s been a mixed bag during a time in which Juventus desperately need their strikers to start consistently scoring goals while so many important players are out injured.
Woltemade has done some good things thus far. He’s also done some things that you were probably worried about when Juventus signed him on a season-long loan deal. He’s not the natural No. 9 that this team is still yearning for, and that means it’s up to Spalletti to somehow figure out a way to make it work.
As we saw this past weekend, that could come with both Woltemade and Randal Kolo Muani on the field at the same time with a two-man attack. (Albeit still with a double pivot in midfield because of course.) It seems somewhat unlikely that we will see that combination play from the start against Celta Vigo, although it’s impossible to rule it out during some sort of timespan on Thursday night.
So if Woltemade is the lone striker playing at Spalletti’s 4-2-3-1 or 3-4-2-1 formation, then it is going to be another test of a Juve striker if they can actually handle that role or if it will be another example of how they are being miscast as players who can’t lead the line.
Celta Vigo will almost certainly be a better unit defensive than we saw from NEC. So now it’s going to be up to Woltemade (and whoever actually plays up front with him) to ensure that Juventus start the Europa League with two wins in two games and really shows that they are taking the competition seriously.
When: Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026.
Where: Estadio Municipal de Balaídos, Vigo, Spain.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time in Spain, Italy and across Europe, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 2 p.m. Central time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.
Television: TUDN USA (United States); TNT Sports 5 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 252 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, Univision NOW, UniMás, TUDN app, TUDN.com (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); HBO Max (United Kingdom); Sky GO Italia, NOW TV (Italy).
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