Once the new fangled Champions League league phase draw came to a close and all of their technology and algorithms were done running, there was very much one fixture in which we looked at as the biggest one of the bunch for Juventus.
It involved a December tussle tussle with Manchester City. The same Manchester City that has won the Premier League four straight years and in six of the last seven seasons. The same Manchester City that won the Champions League in the 2022-23 season and entered this year as one of the finalists to get back atop the European mountain. (And we do appreciate Man City for beating who they beat in that UCL final 20 months ago. Thank you very much for your service with that one, gents.)
It was viewed as a massive measuring stick for the progress Thiago Motta has made in Turin just a few short weeks before the midseason point arrived.
But as Wednesday night’s showdown at the J Stadium arrives, it’s safe to say that neither Juventus nor Manchester City are at their best right now. Or anything close to it.
Both Juve and City are ravaged by injuries to some of their best and/or most important players. Their depth has been tested and tested and tested some more, with plenty of dropped points happening throughout the last month or two. As they prepare to face off in Turin, they both sit on eight points and all of two places apart from each other in the 36-team table ... in 17th and 19th place prior to Tuesday night’s set of games. Once those games were finished, City and Juve dropped down to 20th and 22nd, respectively. Between the two of them, they’ve recorded just one win in the last three matchdays — a sign of just how big the struggle is entering what is being viewed as a rather crucial fixture for both sides’ hopes of advancing to the playoff round.
So, how are things going for City these days?
Well, not great. And that’s probably putting things a little too simply.
Man City’s 2-2 draw with relegation-threatened Crystal Palace just a couple of hours before Juventus’ draw with Bologna by the same scoreline pushed their run over the last six weeks to just one win in their last nine games in all competitions. It’s not only seen them hit depths of struggles that City have never seen since Pep Guardiola arrived in Manchester in 2016, but he’s already declared that his team is very much in “a season to suffer.” (Hell, a run of results like City has had is something that Guardiola has never experienced during his managerial career.)
For such a high-profile club who have gone from one of the favorites to win the whole freakin’ thing in the Champions League to now where they’re at with three league phase fixtures to go, it’s quite the turn of events. And to see it go down in this manner just adds the extra layer of “What the hell just happened?” to it every time City drops points.
Then again, every time Juventus has taken the field lately it’s felt like a case of déjà vu simply because it’s been the same end result over and over again. In Juventus’ four games coming out of the November international break, things have looked like this: draw against AC Milan, draw against Aston Villa, draw against Lecce and, this past weekend, a draw against Bologna. Those four straight draws are part of the 11 draws Juventus have recorded in the first 20 games of the Thiago Motta era in Turin — something that just makes you shake your head whenever you think about all those points that have already been dropped.
Juventus will be facing a City team that, despite all of their struggles, still has the highest average possession figure in the Champions League this season. How Motta decides to try and counteract that will be crucial to Juventus trying to come out of this with some sort of result. (Hey, maybe a draw! Haven’t seen many of those this season, right?)
Plus, let’s be honest, nobody here wants to see Juventus be the team in which we sit here a month or two later and think “This is the game in which City got their groove back.”
Because this is the first edition of this league phase in the Champions League, we have no previous editions to lean on when it comes to what the magic number is for a playoff spot or avoiding elimination. We don’t know, for sure, how many points Juve need in their final three league phase fixtures to ensure they’re going to be one half of a playoff round matchup, but it’s pretty easy to figure out if the draws continue they’re going to be even more at risk than they already are.
And for a club that has placed a lot of (financial) importance on their return to the Champion League, taking another gut punch to their potential advancement would not be a good development.
TEAM NEWS
Juventus saw two of their previously injured midfielders, Douglas Luiz and Weston McKennie return to training over the last three days following Saturday’s draw with Bologna. That is a major boost for a position group that has basically been operating with minimal depth the last couple of weeks.
The big question mark when it comes to the current crop of injured players involves Andrea Cambiaso, who sprained his ankle as a result of a hard shot by Dan Ndoye early in the opening minutes of the Bologna draw. While Cambiaso was thought to be a major doubt to face City, there he was at the beginning of training Tuesday morning with the rest of the group. At the very least, Cambiaso could be an option off the bench if his left ankle is deemed healthy enough to give it a go.
There are, of course, still those players who are definitely out of the clash with Manchester City, although that list is very much as short as its been in over a month. They are: Gleison Bremer, Juan Cabal, Arek Milik and Nico Gonzalez.
On the lineup/health front, Motta added: “those who deserve to play will play and obviously those who have been out for a while need more time.”
Motta also isn’t using the injury situation as an excuse for Juve’s current run of draws. “I don’t think our problems, when they exist, are due to injuries,” he said.
Juventus are unbeaten in their last nine games in all competitions. Seven of them are draws.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
Potentially no Cambiaso. Certainly no Cabal. There might not be else available to play their natural position at left back other than a young Swede who has all of one senior team start and less than 200 minutes in Serie A to his name.
Does that mean Thiago Motta is going to hand things over to said young Swede? No, not necessarily. But no matter what Cambiaso’s health status ends up being, we know one thing: Juventus will probably be fielding one former City player in his starting lineup.
Danilo Luiz da Silva of Juventus FC looks dejected during... Photo by Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images
We’ve recently seen Danilo back out on the right as a fullback. But, because of the current injury situation and the uncertainty surrounding Cambiaso and his ankle entering Wednesday night’s game, many of those who are predicting Juventus’ lineup against City are saying it will be Danilo at left back and Nicolo Savona on the right.
So that is why we will talk about Danilo rather than Jonas Rouhi, who would have been an obvious pick considering how inconsistent he’s looked in limited minutes since his promotion from the Next Gen squad at the beginning of the season.
If Danilo does end up playing left back, it will be the first time in a good amount of time in which he has played that position. The left side of defense is not foreign to him, but his most recent experiences on his much less natural side of the field came in a three-man backline rather than the flat four in which Motta has transitioned Juventus to this season.
The overall prospect of Danilo getting the start against City isn’t totally encouraging based on how he’s played on the whole this season. Was he OK in his last appearance over the weekend? Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that. But, at the same time, we’ve got many more instances of Danilo being not-so-good this season rather than him being solid to pretty good. It’s very much the kind of season in which a 33-year-old with one year left on his contract has very much a limited amount of time left in Turin.
So if Danilo is the pick by Motta to start out wide on the left in defense, then it feels like it’s going to be an interesting ride — and hopefully with more good times than bad. And even though it’s been a minute, at least he has some idea of how Pep might want to attack a defense.
MATCH INFO
When: Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024.
Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. in Italy and the Central European time zone, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TNT Sports 2 (United Kingdom).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); DAZN Canada (Canada); Amazon Prime Video (United Kingdom); Amazon Prime Video (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 Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.