As was the case a year ago, the Coppa Italia is arriving on Juventus’ schedule slightly earlier than last season. We can almost certainly thank the extended Champions League league stage fixture list for this, with the early days of January being no respite for players who have already put thousands of minutes into their bodies as the midpoint of the season approaches.
So when we get another midweek fixture to start the December month’s slate of games, it’s not in the Champions League. This is Coppa Italia.
And considering the fact that Juve’s last adventure in the Copa went completely awry, all I can think of now is basically a thought bubble that goes something like this: Please don’t repeat what happened in February.
The reality of Juventus’ chances this season is becoming more obvious, with the Coppa Italia looking to be Juventus’ most realistic chance to compete for silverware this season. serie a? Not unless something seriously changes soon. Champions League? Ha! Now that’s fun! But the Coppa Italia, it is the wild card this season. And to actually get a chance and prevent what happened last season when Juve were knocked out by a team that ended up being relegated. In Serie B, Luciano Spalletti’s side will first have to try to overcome Udinese at the Allianz Stadium on Tuesday night.
Yes, the same Udinese team that Juventus beat just hours before Spalletti was officially appointed to replace Igor Tudor. So perhaps Juve should bring in Massimo Brambilla for the night like they did at the end of October and see if he can replace the good mojo he had five or so weeks ago?
Of course, I say this jokingly. Or maybe there is some truth behind it. It worked the first time against Udinese, didn’t it?
But it’s still a little strange to sit here and think that while Juventus making things worse in the early part of their Coppa Italia campaign for the second consecutive season is a real possibility. This season has shown us once again that logic can be thrown straight out the window, and you can’t just assume that Juve – no matter how much the customary Coppa Italia squad rotation is reduced – will last until the semi-final round because they are so much better than everyone else.
Should Juve beat Udinese on Tuesday night? Yes, because these matches of the round of 16 are always in favor of the big club.
But it’s not as if Udinese are returning to Turin in any bad form for the second time in just over a month. They have won two of their four games since facing Juventus, and those two defeats came either side of the November international break to two of the more talented teams in Serie A in Atalanta and Bologna.
And dare we say that, where do Udinese currently sit in the Serie A table? Yes, let’s go ahead and do that: ninth place and a full five points behind seventh-placed Juventus.
So, this is not a layoff. We have seen Juve play as relegation battlers at this stage of the Coppa Italia before, but not this season. There will be squad rotation for one team, but the other side will be playing with home money as they face the Turin giants. As we said in the first few rounds that Juve played last season, the goal here is to avoid disaster and simply move on. He did this not once, but twice. Let us not repeat that history in any way.
- The big news of the day on Monday: Dusan Vlahovic will be out for (at least) three months due to the adductor injury he suffered against Cagliari at the weekend. In his pre-match press conference, Spalletti not only confirmed the injury, but said he expected Vlahovic to be out for “two or three months” – much longer than Juve’s initial announcement.
- This means that for the next few months, the responsibility of leading the line will fall to Jonathan David and Lois Openda.
- Spalletti said that Mattia Perin will not be part of the squad to face Udinese because “he is a bit tired” after starting against Bodo/Glimt and Cagliari in the space of four days. This means Michele Di Gregorio, who has been ill for much of the past week, will return in goal for Juventus.
- Other injured players are famous: Gleeson Bremner, Daniele Rugani, Carlo Pinsoglio and (of course) Arek Milik.
- When it comes to the customary Coppa Italia squad rotation, Spalletti said, “We should expect some changes.” He also said that the team has had to “struggle physically and mentally” after two consecutive wins.
For Juventus the opening games of the Coppa Italia always mean one thing: squad rotation.
So while we don’t know for sure how much of the rotation there will be, it’s going to be something that a lot of people will be very interested in watching as we get closer to the starting lineup.
All that being said, I feel quite safe giving the player a start against Udinese on Tuesday night.
When it comes to Fabio Miretti’s role in this Juventus team, it’s clear that Spalletti is a big fan of the young Italian midfielder. Just look at what Spalletti said about Miretti during Monday’s pre-match press conference:
He is a footballer who can do many things. He has the timing of the game, of the game, because then you have to be good at knowing when to grab the extra touch, when to move it out of the way without touching, and then the personality to make the unexpected from the expected. A good player knows how to create the unexpected, and he knows how to do it. He is a playwright who sometimes invents something. When he was on loan, playing a different role, seeing the ball from different angles was good for him and it helped him. I think his role is that of a defensive midfielder. But the fact that he can adapt may help the team.
That’s high praise for a player Spalletti has only been working with for about a month. Miretti’s loan spell at Genoa has proven to be the right move for him personally, as he returns to Juventus physically stronger and also as someone who has benefited from consistent game time. We saw it before his injury in the preseason, and we’re seeing it again now that he’s back healthy and available for a manager like Spalletti, who has a history of doing some good things with young players of Miretti’s age.
The sample size of Miretti’s contributions this season is still quite small. He has only played around 120 minutes in all competitions – as you can probably guess, not really that much time when you consider how busy the schedule is these days. But in those minutes he has shown he can make things happen – and that’s not always something you can say about Juventus’ midfielders this season (or the season before that).
I feel pretty safe in saying that we’ll see Miretti get his biggest minutes so far this season when Juve faces Udinese. This should be another positive development for the youngster who has had a positive start to the season, regardless of how much he has actually played.
When: Tuesday, December 2, 2025.
Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.
Official Kickoff Time: 9PM local time in Italy and across Europe, 8PM in the United Kingdom, 3PM Eastern Time, 2PM Central Time, 12PM Pacific Time.
Television: CBS Sports Network (United States); TLN (Canada); Premier Sports 2 (United Kingdom); Italia 1 (Italy).
Online/Streaming: paramount+fuboTV (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); Mediaset Infinity (Italy).
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