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With 11 games to go in the 2024-25 season, there are only so many chances left for Thiago Motta and Juventus to get a direct shot at one of the other teams they\u2019re competing for a top four spot against. Yet in this 11-game group of fixturss that\u2019s left, Juventus still more than a couple of chances chances to try and either get closer to the three teams in front of them or put distance between the teams that are directly behind them in the league table.<\/p>\n
On Sunday night, third place in Serie A is coming to Turin to face fourth place.<\/p>\n
Thanks to last weekend\u2019s craziness even before Motta\u2019s squad took the field, third-place Atalanta and fourth-place Juventus are separated by just three points in the Serie A standings. That means a potential sixth straight league win for Motta and Juve and they\u2019re suddenly level on points with the boys from Bergamo and, at the very least, staying even with Napoli and Inter at the top of the table. <\/p>\n
While Juventus\u2019 title chances still feel like a relative long shot even with the sudden pulling closer to league-leading Inter in recent weeks, the battle for the top four is very much on. Juve entered Matchday 28 two points ahead of fifth-place Lazio, one of the team they still have on the schedule come the spring. Fiorentina, down in sixth, are still left on the schedule. Same goes for Bologna, too, who are down in seventh.<\/p>\n
But it is Sunday night\u2019s game, against the third-place opponent that is very much within striking distance, in which Juventus enter on their best form of the season.<\/p>\n
At least when it comes to the simple results in the standings, that is.<\/p>\n
Yes, Juventus are still trying to find that ever-elusive complete 90 minutes. But they enter Sunday night\u2019s matchup with Atalanta on a five-game winning streak in Serie A, the kind of form that has them only second to Claudio Ranieri\u2019s resurgent Roma when it comes to points earned over the course of their last six games. Juventus have shown to have good halves, maybe even a good 60 minutes, but that complete effort from opening whistle until the triple blast after 90-something minutes is still something they are looking for.<\/p>\n
Against an Atalanta that they know will press them high as they always do and have the offensive firepower to potentially drop a big goal tally at any given moment, Juventus will certainly need more than they have been throwing out there despite the current winning streak in Serie A.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s also this: If you believe there is a \u201cright time\u201d to catch a contender for the top four at, this might as well be that time for Juve when it comes to facing Atalanta.<\/p>\n
As much as we talk about the potential of this Atalanta side, things are very much not all good in Bergamo at the moment. There have been the off the field matters involving the future of manager Gian Piero Gasperini and penalty kick controversy that involved Ademola Lookman. On the field, Atalanta\u2019s last six league fixtures have been an alternating pattern between wins and draws, the most recent result coming in a scoreless outing against relegation-threatened Venezia in which they recorded 18 shots and an xG of nearly 2.0 but couldn\u2019t put anyhing past one of the worst defenses in the league.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s before you consider, just like Juventus, all of this comes at a time in which Atalanta <\/p>\n
So while we\u2019re in a constant state of wondering which Juventus will show up from both a game-to-game basis and a half-to-half basis, the same could probably be said about Atalanta at the moment as well.<\/p>\n
But at this point of the season and what Juventus are trying to secure with a top four finish, how you get the points doesn\u2019t exactly matter but just that you get them. Look at what Milan did against Lecce on Saturday. Look at what Inter did against Monza later in the day. Sometimes the wins aren\u2019t always pretty, but they\u2019re wins \u2014 and that\u2019s what Juventus need most right now with 11 games to go and a spot in the top four to try and secure.<\/p>\n