With just three games to go in the 2025-26 season, Juventus have the chance to see the home stretch go one of two ways. They can either hold firm on their slim, one-point margin over fifth-place Roma (and Como in sixth place) and qualify for the Champions League. Or, they can fumble away what was a good advantage to have just a couple of weeks ago, seeing chances to wrap things up go by the wayside and drop down into a potential doomsday scenario when it comes to the core of the roster and the finances of the club.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
One part of this fork in the road is the good option.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The other is \u2026 well, basically the opposite of that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
So how do you prevent a reality where Juventus walk through the less-than-desirable Door No. 2? You listen to Rocky Balboa\u2019s wife Adrian<\/a> and close your final three games with nothing but three points.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One week after lining up against a team that had just been officially relegated to Serie B, Juventus now face a team that is trying not to join Hellas Verona in Italy\u2019s second division next season. As things stand right now, Lecce\u2019s standing in 17th place is actually looking a little better than Juve\u2019s in fourth. Lecce are four points ahead of Cremonese when it comes to the final relegation spot, with Hellas Verona and Pisa mathematically relegated during the opening hours of Matchday 35 last week. Come Saturday night at the Via Del Mare, any sort of taking points off Juventus will mean Lecce\u2019s status in Serie A for next season is just that much looks that much better. But at the same time, it would mean the potential and dread Door No. 2 option for Luciano Spalletti of becoming that much more of a reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Considering Juventus\u2019 final two fixtures of the season are against two teams, Fiorentina and Torino (at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino), who would absolutely love to see the Bianconeri\u2019s Champions League hopes go up in smoke right in front of the finish line, going into those two matchups in even worse shape than things may appear now is potentially the final nail in the coffin. Or least that\u2019s how it would feel from the outside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As weird as the past few days have been because when you drop points against a team that\u2019s already been relegated and see your advantage in fourth place cut to a single point it\u2019s not like you can feel great about things, Juventus are still in the driver\u2019s seat. They can control their own destiny. You win the final three games of the season and you\u2019re in the Champions League again. It won\u2019t matter what Roma does. It won\u2019t matter what Como does, either. Three wins and you\u2019re in \u2014 simple as that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Manuel Locatelli put it best earlier this week<\/a>: \u201cWe know it all depends on us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s seven simple words from the man who wears the captain\u2019s armband at Juventus. The words are simple, but as the Bianconeri showed last weekend, actually doing so against one of the worst teams in the league \u2014 that\u2019s already been relegated down to Serie B, too! \u2014 isn\u2019t as simple as it appears on paper. (It should have been but it wasn\u2019t. Because this team just shoots itself in the foot so many damn times.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Spalletti was just as direct \u2014 or at least in his own special way since he\u2019s a very philosophical when at the microphone \u2014 when discussing Juve\u2019s current situation in regard to Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn some ways, though, the path is now clearer, there\u2019s only one way forward, with no room for distraction,\u201d he said during Friday\u2019s pre-match press conference<\/a>. \u201cYou don\u2019t risk getting there whilst harbouring doubts about how you should behave. You have to be resolute in your choices and intentions. That\u2019s what makes the difference, we need to do something that breaks the monotony, the routine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So now after facing a team that had nothing left to play for other than pride (and maybe auditioning for their next team), you are facing a second straight provincial side that has a whole lot on the line<\/em> when they take the field on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Something that is true: Lecce has more wins over the last couple of matchdays Juventus. Seriously, that\u2019s a thing. Have they been great over their last six games, let alone the last few months? Of course not, and that is a big reason why they\u2019re just a few points out of the relegation zone as compared to a much more comfortable position with three games to go. They are still fighting for their lives in Serie A, and a loss to Juventus plus Cremonese beating Pisa on Sunday could make for an incredibly stressful final two weeks of the season for Eusebio Di Francesco.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So, this is no pushover. Juve may have won the last four of six meetings against Lecce since their return to Serie A, but very few of them have been dominant or runaway kinds of victories. This could very well be another one of those cases where it\u2019s 1-0 or 2-1 and you\u2019re going to have to grind out every single minute in which you have the lead despite the fact you\u2019re playing against one of the statistically worst teams in Serie A.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Then again, Juve\u2019s already dropped points against Lecce once this season \u2014 and what a wonderful way to begin the calendar year of 2026 that was! \u2014 so it might not be out of the realm of possibilities that you\u2019re seriously worrying about that happening again. You certainly won\u2019t be alone there, my friend.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But like Spalletti and Locatelli have both said, Juventus have their fate in their hands. They get all three points and they\u2019re heading back to Turin just that much closer to qualifying for the Champions League. It might not be a situation that\u2019s wrapped up a couple of weeks early like we hoped, but the more you can prevent the disaster situation from happening then the better your chances of getting into the competition with the world-famous anthem end up being.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nobody wants to see Door No. 2 become a reality. Not Spalletti, not Locatelli, not any of us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So Spalletti said Vlahovic could very well be in the starting lineup against Lecce?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And you think we won\u2019t take that chance to talk again<\/em> about a Juventus attacking player for very obvious reasons?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Of course we will. Every single time Lucio opens that door, we will take that chance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Yes, Vlahovic could be in the starting lineup and having Yildiz and Chico Concei\u00e7\u00e3o flanking him in attack against Lecce on Saturday night. In a way, maybe this is what Spalletti hoped for all along and wanted ever since the early weeks of his managerial tenure at Juventus up until Vlahovic got hurt and subsequently missed close to four months as a result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But for Spalletti to say something like this during which a time that he doesn\u2019t always have press conferences and doesn\u2019t usually comment on the starting lineup chances of players, it has to mean something. Or maybe that\u2019s just me reading too much into it. Or maybe it\u2019s just me hoping that the easy pick to fill out this section of the preview actually comes to fruition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Understandably, it\u2019s been a bit of a mixed bag for Vlahovic in his first couple of appearances off the bench since coming back from his minor muscle injury he picked up while warming up to potentially come on against Genoa. There\u2019s been some good things, but there\u2019s also been some classic not-so-good things from Vlahovic that has you just shaking your head because you\u2019ve seen them so many times over the last few years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The thing is, though, the alternatives aren\u2019t exactly inspiring. Is Vlahovic a better option than Jonathan David right now? Maybe. That\u2019s basically what it\u2019s down to for Spalletti and what he\u2019s probably asking himself. Does this Juventus team have a better chance of scoring goals and winning on Saturday night (and then the next two weeks) if it\u2019s Vlahovic or David starting up front? It doesn\u2019t seem so simple, but maybe that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the very least, if Vlahovic does play from the start, it will be nice for Juventus to have somebody who is considered a fairly good free kicker taker. Because as he proved last weekend, he can do that well and it does actually bring something to the table as compared to the normal state of Juve\u2019s threat from free kicks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When: <\/strong>Saturday, May 9, 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Where:<\/strong> Stadio Via Del Mare, Lecce, Italy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Official kickoff time:<\/strong> 8:45 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 7:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, 1:45 p.m. Central time, 11:45 a.m. Pacific time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Television:<\/strong> TLN (Canada); TNT Sports 2 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Calcio, Sky Sport 251 (Italy).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Online\/Streaming:<\/strong> Paramount+<\/strong><\/a>, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italy, Sky Go Italia, NOW TV (Italy).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Other live viewing options can be found here<\/strong><\/a>, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Bluesky<\/strong><\/a>. If you haven\u2019t already, join the community<\/strong><\/a> on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n