For the second consecutive year, this final section of our season ratings has not one but two managers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That, obviously, is not a good thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It is another one of the many damming statements about what has led to the current state of Juventus in 2026. The club started what they thought would be a modernization project around Thiago Motta in the summer of 2024 was over in less than a year and the man who came into replace him, Igor Tudor, didn\u2019t even come close to making it that long during his tenure as manager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Enter a much different profile as manager in Luciano Spalletti, a man in his mid-60s who was brought in to try and right the ship after Tudor\u2019s disastrous start to the season while at the same time trying to right the wrongs of his last managerial job with the Italian national team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As I feel like I\u2019ve said a decent amount in posts in the final couple weeks of the season, this is how it went:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
- \n
- Juventus were in sixth place when they fired Tudor in late October.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Juventus, under Spalletti, were in sixth place when the Serie A season came to a close.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
\nSoooooo, in the grand scheme of things, the overall state of things didn\u2019t exactly improve when looking at the table.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nDid other things change? Yeah, of course. Juventus\u2019 style under Spalletti changed from that with Tudor. It wasn\u2019t the completely revolutionary vision that Motta was going for at the beginning of last season that ultimately failed him, but it was much more of a possession-based, front-facing one that created much chances in front of goal than that of his predecessor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThe finishing of those chances, something that isn\u2019t necessarily the fault of the manager, is a different story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nBut the inconsistent ways of this team was ultimately something even Spalletti couldn\u2019t rein in and it was the downfall of the season. The hole that Tudor created was something they looked like they were going to dig out of \u2014 even with a terrible run of form in February \u2014 but the way they ended the season comes to down to all parties involved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nYou just can\u2019t close the season with six points in your final five games and expect to hold onto your standing in third or fourth place with how tight things were down the stretch. That\u2019s on the players, but it\u2019s also very much on the guy who was coaching them every day in training.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nIn hindsight, he never should have been brought back to coach this team after getting them into the Champions League last season. That\u2019s easy to say now more than six months after he was fired in October. But it\u2019s true! For as much praise as he might have earned because of that top-four finish entering the summer and coaching Juventus at the Club World Cup, that\u2019s certainly not the case for the job he did during the first 2 1\/2 months of the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nNot as bad as at his second job of the 2025-26 season, but still pretty bad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nWhich is something that, after a fast start to the season, maybe you didn\u2019t see coming. Or, at the very least, you didn\u2019t see things going as bad as they did as quickly as they actually did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSTADIO OLIMPICO, ROME, ITALY – 2025\/10\/26: Igor Tudor, head coach of Juventus FC during the warm up of the Serie A 2025\/2026 football match between SS Laziio and Juventus FC. Lazio won 1-0 over Juventus. (Photo by Antonietta Baldassarre\/Insidefoto\/LightRocket via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \nThe catch was that Juventus needed somebody to coach them at the Club World Cup. And after swinging and missing with Antonio Conte and then Gian Piero Gasperini, the very-recently-hired Damien Comolli was faced with a choice \u2014 circle back to Tudor as your third choice or scramble to get somebody else before the vastly-rich Club World Cup got underway in the United States. The choice was Tudor after he basically said he wanted to know his future before the tournament preparations began.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThat was the wrong choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nAfter winning his first three games of the season against Parma, Genoa and then the wild 4-3 win over Inter Milan in the Derby d\u2019Italia, Tudor didn\u2019t win another game again. Following the win over Inter, Tudor collected all of five points in his final eight games in all competitions, with the final three games on the sidelines all being loses. The bright start was gone. The energy after the win over Inter was completely zapped and left the building at Continassa and the team suddenly looked just completely devoid of any idea of what to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThose final three losses of the Tudor era \u2014 to Como, Real Madrid and then Lazio \u2014 certainly had the feel of a manager who was entering his last days as manager. The rumors starting flying about his status. And by the time that Juve returned home from Madrid after failing to get a win in their third straight Champions League league phase fixture, his time as manager in Turin was on life support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nJuventus fired Tudor on Oct. 27, one day after the loss to Lazio, a club that hadn\u2019t added a single player over the summer due to a transfer ban and was going through plenty of other problems with Maurizio Sarri. It was a deserved end result but, as we know, it\u2019s not like he was working with a squad that was deserving of finishing in the top four.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nJuventus finished in the same place in the standings as they were when Tudor was sacked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nBut hey, at least Tudor\u2019s Juventus run this past season wasn\u2019t as bad as his seven-game spell at Tottenham. So there\u2019s that, I guess?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThis one is a little tougher because of two very obvious factors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nFor one, Spalletti had the Tudor-created hole in the standings to try and dig out of when he took over right before Halloween. The team was a mess when he arrived and he had a roster of total mismatches that had a whole lot of problems and ultimately limited options in which the veteran tactician could actually trust with how he wanted to play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThe second, however, is that he had a whole lot more time to try and get Juventus into the top four than Tudor did last season. And because of that, he had a lot more wiggle room when it comes to getting into the top four and then ultimately trying to stay there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nWith two games to go, Juventus were in the top four and had to beat two mid-table teams \u2014 albeit difficult matchups because they wanted to completely ruin the Bianconeri\u2019s season \u2014 to qualify for the Champions League.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThey didn\u2019t win either of those games. They fell from third to sixth in the penultimate weekend of the season. And they ultimately failed to qualify for the Champions League. The main thing Spalletti was brought in to try and achieve didn\u2019t happen. So how much of that is on him? This is the ultimate question.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
- Juventus, under Spalletti, were in sixth place when the Serie A season came to a close.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
![\"ISTANBUL,](\"https:\/\/platform.blackwhitereadallover.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2026\/05\/gettyimages-2243287564.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n