After getting keelhauled by Manchester City on Thursday, expectations from Juventus fans were low going into Tuesday’s Club World Cup Round of 16 matchup against old foe Real Madrid.
It was the first competitive match between the two since the Michael Oliver Affair, and boy have the fortunes of the two clubs diverged since then. It’s been years since Juve were able to truly compete at Real’s level, and there were well-founded fears that this Madrid team, even without Kylian Mbappe in the starting lineup, would perform another execution to usher Juve out of the competition.
It’s perhaps indicative of the times that fans found relief in the fact that Juve went out with dignity, dropping a 1-0 game in a humid soup of a Hard Rock Stadium in Miami that eventually turned into a driving rain. It took an absolutely heroic turn from Michele Di Gregorio in goal to keep the scoreline there, but keep it there he did, despite being forced to make 10 saves, the majority of which were truly world class.
If you want to see a silver lining in going out of this tournament, you can perhaps point to that scoreline. There’s a big gulf in quality between these two sides right now. Federico Valverde, in particular, played perhaps the best single game I’ve seen by a midfielder since Arturo Vidal was at the peak of his powers. But despite all that, Juve found a way to hang with Madrid until the very end — a sign that the Old Lady could perhaps wake up a bit sooner than we think if the new front office does their job properly.
Igor Tudor returned his A lineup to the field after rotating against City, although he could no longer call on Nicolò Savona after he suffered a serious ankle injury on Thursday. One of his options to replace him, Federico Gatti, was only fit for the bench due to flu symptoms. The 3-4-2-1 remained in place, with Di Gregorio at its base. Daniele Rugani was called upon for his first Juventus appearance since May 2024 to replace Savona, joining Pierre Kalulu and Lloyd Kelly in the back three. Alberto Costa and Andrea Cambiaso bookended Manuel Locatelli and Khéphren Thuram in the midfield, while Kenan Yildiz and Francisco Conceição supported Randal Kolo Muani in attack.
Xabi Alonso was still getting his feet wet as the manager of his old club, but he had a full squad to work with, including Mbappe, who was available on the bench for the first time in the tournament after dealing with a bout of food poisoning. Alonso sent out a 3-5-2, anchored by Thibaut Courtois. Aurélien Tchouaméni, Antonio Rüdiger, and (screaming internally) Dean Huijsen made up the defensive line. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Fran García served as wing-backs, bracketing the midfield trio of Valverde, Jude Bellingham, and Arda Güler. Vinícius Júnior and Gonzalo García were the forwards.
The game could’ve been very different had Kolo Muani converted the game’s first big chance in the seventh minute. After dispossessing Alexander-Arnold, Yildiz exchanged passes with the Frenchman, charged forward, then pulled up to open a gap to pass the ball to Kolo Muani, who timed his run perfectly and got behind Rüdiger. One-on-one with Courtois, he elected to try to chip him, but the shot flew a ball’s width over the bar and landed on the roof of the net.
The center of Madrid’s defense seemed vulnerable in the early going, and barely four minutes later Yildiz turned with a pass from Kelly and again surged through the center of the field, this time going for the top corner from 24 yards. A desperate touch by Tchouaméni diverted the shot just enough to flash it wide, otherwise the ball would have flown in past a frozen Courtois.
Unlike the City game, where Juve were on the back foot from the beginning, they kept stretches of possession throughout the game’s first half-hour, and picked their moments to run some powerful counterattacks. Thuram strode through midfield in the 23rd minute and brought Cambiaso into play, who crossed into the box for the unlikeliest of targets, Conceição, to get a head to it, but he bounced it right to Courtois when either side would have opened the scoring.
Madrid’s first real chance came at the half-hour mark, when Valverde put a low cross in from the right that slotted perfectly into the path of Bellingham, but Di Gregorio made a fantastic point-blank save and Rugani hooked the rebound to safety.
Real Madrid CF v Juventus FC: Round Of 16 - FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
The Italian keeper was called into action again in first-half stoppage time, flying through the air when Valverde loaded up from 30 yards out and getting a single hand on it to turn it past the post.
Real had retained more and more control of the game as it had gone on, with Alonso clearly shifting defensive responsibilities to try to keep a lid on Yildiz while pressing harder as the minutes went by. They cranked up the pressure even more in the second half, and within seconds of the restart Valverde barely missed a half-volley to the far post. In the 53rd minute Huijsen came close to breaking his old club’s heart, firing another long-range stunner that was met with another equally good save by Di Gregorio. After the ensuing corner, Vinícius put the ball back into the box. Kelly headed clear, but only as far as Alexander-Arnold, who lobbed the ball back into the box. There it met Gonzalo García, who had taken advantage of a discombobulated Juventus defense to free himself when Kalulu tried to move to cover Rüdiger in front of him, leaving no one to guard the emerging 21-year-old striker. His free header flew past Di Gregorio’s hand — although it must be said it wasn’t all that far away — and snapped the net to open the scoring.
Juve nearly produced an instant response. Kolo Muani cushioned a pass from Thuram into the path of Conceição, who hit a 25-yard worm-burner toward Courtois’ far post. Had the grass been a little drier, it might’ve gathered speed and flashed past the Belgium international, but Madrid’s keeper got down and met it with a one-handed parry. Kolo Muani turned provider again 15 minutes later with another layoff, this time for Nico González, whose left-footed shot bent a little too much as it searched for the far post.
Those warnings seemed to kick Los Blancos into another gear, and they spend the final 20 minutes pushing hard for a second goal to end things. Juve were second to every 50/50 ball, and even when they won the first challenge they often lost the second. A lightning counterattack forced Di Gregorio to make another fabulous save, this time off Güler. Tchouaméni was the last man to be denied, with Di Gregorio just flicking the ball wide with his fingers from another long-range effort.
Real Madrid CF v Juventus Turin: Round Of 16 - FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Photo by Pedro Monteverde/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images
Juve’s efforts to find an equalizer slowed as the game ticked on, perhaps a function of exhaustion on the pitch combined with the inability to match the skill of their opponents. As the final whistle blew, Madrid celebrated a win that had been in their hands for most of the last 60 minutes of the match, but Juve could at least walk off the field like men having put forward a respectable effort in defeat.
LE PAGELLE
MICHELE DI GREGORIO - 9. To say he stood on his head would be an understatement. He balanced on his nose. The majority of the saves he made were fully world-class, and he single-handedly prevented this from becoming a rout and giving Juve some chance to get back into things, even if they didn’t create much opportunity to do so.
PIERRE KALULU - 5.5. Made five clearances and made a good contribution to passing out of Madrid’s press in the early part of the game, but got caught in no man’s land on the goal. Had to make a decision on who to mark and made the wrong one.
DANIELE RUGANI - 6. Juventus has treated him like crap through most of his career, and yet he keeps on delivering when he’s called upon. He made 10 clearances, won a game-high three aerial duels, and completed 95.2 percent of his passes. His integration into the team was shockingly seamless for a guy that hasn’t played for the club in 14 months. Hopefully this convinces the front office to retain him for center-back depth.
LLOYD KELLY - 5. His poor clearance saw Alexander-Arnold set up the goal, another in a long line of mistakes he’s made since January. Part of my hope for Rugani staying around is to plop him in front of this dude on the depth chart.
ALBERTO COSTA - 5.5. Made 10 clearances and led the team with two tackles, but Viní Jr had him scrambling as the game went on, and he looked out of place when moved back into the back three.
MANUEL LOCATELLI - 6. Did some really great defensive work, denying Viní a goal on a fantastic sliding challenge in the box. Completed 95.4 percent of his passes but wasn’t able to get close enough to the goal to get anything incisive going.
KHÉPHREN THURAM - 6. Ran EVERYWHERE in incredibly difficult conditions. Didn’t post any key passes but did serve as a key trigger to the attack by carrying the ball through the middle of the field, often after he recovered the ball.
ANDREA CAMBIASO - 5.5. One of the few players on the field other than Yildiz that looked like he could challenge Madrid’s defense in terms of creativity — he led the team with three dribbles — but didn’t create more than the one key pass for Conceição’s header. Needs to get back to the form he showed before his ankle injury last year.
FRANCISCO CONCEIÇÃO - 5.5. Hard to judge, cause his touches were limited and he wasn’t able to create much dangerous when he was. One of the biggest questions of the game will be whether that short would’ve skittered into the goal if it were a bit drier.
KENAN YILDIZ - 6. A complete menace in the early portions of the game, but Madrid adjusted and held him quiet for the final hour of the match.
Real Madrid CF v Juventus Turin: Round Of 16 - FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Photo by Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images
RANDAL KOLO MUANI - 5.5. Led the team with three key passes, but my God that miss is going to haunt him for a while. You simply have to beat the keeper when you’re 1v1 like that.
SUBS
NICO GONZÁLEZ - 5. Came a whisker from tying it midway through the second but otherwise completely anonymous.
FILIP KOST9IC - 4. Totally invisible after coming on.
TEUN KOOPMEINERS - 4. Early in his outing he was sent into the channel on a ball he would’ve taken first time as a more confident Koop would shoot first time and bury. Instead he drifted out wide. Needs to rev up the next few weeks.
WESTON McKENNIE - NR. Wasn’t on the field long enough to really make an impact, although the touches he did have were dangerous.
FEDERICO GATTI - NR. Confusing why he was on at all.
MANAGER ANALYSIS
Tudor’s substitutions deserve some scrutiny here.
Removing both Conceição and Yildiz as the second half progressed when they were two of the most dangerous players the team had on the field at the time seemed a bit odd. Tudor said after the game “at the end there were 10 players asking to come off,” and the conditions at Hard Rock Stadium were dangerously reminiscent of Manaus in Brazil during the 2014 World Cup.
Real Madrid CF v Juventus Turin: Round Of 16 - FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Photo by Image Photo Agency/Getty Images
Still, they were the only two guys presenting any sort of attacking threat. Perhaps both were at the end of their rope physically, although Yildiz in particular seemed deeply upset to come off. But fitness issues were the only acceptable reason those guys came off. Otherwise, Tudor needs to explain himself further as the summer goes along.
Tudor deserves some credit for helping Juve get off the mat after that shellacking against City, but his in-game decision making is leaving a lot to be desired so far, and is going to have to improve if Juve will make a jump next season.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Club World Cup is over for Juve. The players will break for a mini-vacation, then come back to prep for the 2025-26 season. That begins on Aug. 24 with a home game against Parma.