There have been years where Juventus arrive at their first European fixture with some optimism about how they’re playing. There have been other years in which the optimism has been, well, lacking for one reason or another. Coming out of the weekend and what happened against Sassuolo, you can probably guess which line the Juventus-related optimism lands in as the first European fixture of the 2026-27 season arrives.
The thing is, on top of that optimism lacking, the first European comes at a time in which Juventus just put forward their worst performance of the new season and suffered their first defeat in crushing fashion as a result.
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So, yeah, who really knows what to expect Thursday night.
But here comes European competition once against for Luciano Spalletti and Juventus. It’s not the European competition in which a club with the history that Juventus has, but because of last season’s sixth-place finish, the Bianconeri find themselves in the Europa League for at least the next few months. The first Europa League fixture of the season — and since they tried to make the competition’s final at their home stadium in 2022 only to get eliminated in the semis — comes against Dutch side NEC Nijmegen. On paper, it’s the kind of soft landing after a rough weekend considering how their opponent is doing domestically in the Netherlands. But, with so many injuries to important players and what we just saw from Spalletti’s squad just a few days earlier, it’s hard to envision some sort of rapid response.
That optimism, it’s lacking — at least from the outside.
There’s been plenty of chatter in the days following Juventus’ 3-2 loss to Sassuolo at the Mapei about what might be next ahead of the Europa League opener. The Italian press is already speculating about Spalletti’s job. There’s rumors that Spalletti will change formation as a result of what happened on Sunday and, maybe more importantly, the overall state of the squad thanks to those injuries up and down the roster. There’s been talk of squad rotation as well — which makes sense considering that there’s a big matchup against Atalanta coming in just a few days this weekend as Juve jump into the Thursday-Sunday grind for the first time this season.
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Above all else, though, you’re just left to hope that the Europa League opener just doesn’t look anything like what we saw from this team this past weekend.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. You can ask as nice as you want, but this current iteration of Juventus have taught us that it doesn’t matter what we want because there’s simply limitations to what they can do.
Thursday night’s opposition are not very good. NEC enters the game in 10th place in the Eredivisie this season. They’ve lost more games than they’ve won. They’ve allowed more goals than they’ve scored. They’re coming off a 3-0 loss to an SC Cambuur side that is sitting in 15th. It’s not great! So, on paper, this could very well be looked at as a get-right kind of game for Juventus after such an awful result and sub-par performance just a few days earlier.
But, the fact is, we just don’t know how Spalletti and his team will actually respond to it.
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“We’ve identified the areas where we need to make changes,” Spalletti said during Wednesday’s pre-match press conference. “We need to be more compact to cut off our opponents’ passing lanes and understand when to press and when, instead, to set up a lower block, waiting for the opponent to make a mistake. But the explanation lies less in collective tactics. Today, the difference is made by the way you read situations. Mental resilience will be crucial tomorrow.”
For Juventus in 2026 (and the last few years as a whole), having “mental resilience” is not something you can always say. The execution has lacked, the approach has been along those same lines, too.
So, with pressure already mounting — something Spalletti has said he both expected and is essentially good with considering his current employer — Juventus now jump back into Europa. It’s not the European competition that brings in the big bucks, but it’s still Europe and Juve are, surprisingly to a lot of folks, one of the favorites to win the whole damn thing.
Now it’s just time to go out and prevent a repeat of what happened on Sunday night to take place again.
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Injuries, injuries and more injuries! Although, not as many as over the weekend — so that’s a start.
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That is because two players who have been out since late-August, Weston McKennie and Andrea Cambiaso, both returned to full training on Tuesday. Out of the two, McKennie is much more likely to be in the starting lineup as compared to Cambiaso, who is looking to be a potential option of the bench for Spalletti in the second half against NEC.
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With McKennie and Cambiaso back training, the only players missing out due to injury are the long-term ones: Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Khephren Thuram, Jérémie Boga, Jeff Ekhator and Juan Cabal.
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Lloyd Kelly will be suspended for Thursday night’s Europa League opener. Why? Because of the ridiculous red card he got in the second league of last season’s Champions League play-off round tie against Galatasaray. So there’s one more player not available for Spalletti to potentially play.
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Just a reminder that the man who scored both of Juventus’ goals in the loss to Sassuolo, Edon Zhegrova, will not be able to face NEC on Thursday night because he is not part of the Biaconeri’s squad list for the league phase. That was an understandable decision … before everybody got hurt.
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With rumors of squad rotation, Pape Matar Sarr and Nick Woltemade could be in line for their first Juventus starts on Thursday night.
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Sarr is essentially in competition for a starting spot with Teun Koopmeiners, whose return to the starting lineup (and the double pivot) in Locatelli’s absence did not go well over the weekend.
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There have also been rumors that Spalletti could hand backup keeper Kamil Grabara his first Juve start as well, but those have cooled down a bit as we’ve gotten under 24 hours before kickoff.
Gleison Bremer‘s first game as Juventus captain in the absence of Locatelli didn’t not go very well. That is not exactly what you want from one of your best players on the roster — and especially so when it is so short-handed due to both injuries and other mitigating factors.
Yet, here we are again to see just how the new (stand-in) captain bounces back.
Because a repeat of Sunday night’s defensive showing will mean the Europa League opener is probably just as frustrating — if not more — than what we saw over the weekend.
But to see Bremer be one of the biggest culprits of Sunday’s defensive meltdown was probably a surprise to many simply because the big Brazilian had looked quite good in Juventus’ first three games. Maybe you thought he was back to his old self again. Or maybe you were cautiously optimistic that he was trending in that direction while very much not willing to declare him fully back to his old self just yet.
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What we saw against Sassuolo was worrisome, of course. You are left to wonder if it’s just a one-off or a repeat of the same player who doesn’t look like his old self that we saw so much of last season as he surpassed the 12-month mark of post-ACL surgery life.
We know that Bremer will be a central figure in whatever the result is. We know he will be at the heart of the defensive effort no matter if Spalletti chooses to stick with his four-man backline or switch it up and go with three at the back. We know there will be a fellow South American in Jhon Lucumí to his left, although we don’t know what kind of formation that will come in just yet.
The problem is that we know what Juve could be like when Bremer is going bad. We know that Good Bremer is one of the best defenders in Serie A, a player who is a massive asset at the back that takes on opposing strikers like it’s something he greatly enjoys. (Because he probably does!) But when things aren’t right with Bremer, things look a lot like they did at the back against Sassuolo. And that’s a major problem both for the player, his manager and his team as a whole.
So while we know what version of Bremer showed up at the Mapei, we still wait to see what will be next as Juventus welcome Dutch opposition to Turin for the first time in a year and a half.
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When: Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026.
Where: Juventus Stadium, Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time in 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, UniMás (United States); TNT Sports 4 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 252 (Italy).
Online/Streaming:Paramount+, TUDN.com, TUDN app, Univision NOW (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); HBO Max (United Kingdom); Sky GO Italia, NOW TV (Italy).
Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Bluesky. Black & White & Read All Over]’s match threads from your phone with the new SB Nation app. Commenting and interacting with your communities is easier than ever before with the Game Chat feature. The app is available currently in the U.S. on iOS and Android devices.
