Kenan Yildiz may be 20 years old and still relatively young in the game top-flight football, but he has already shown the kind of qualities that make you believe he is capable of putting a team on his back and flipping things in Juventus’ favor. He’s done it before, and he did it again on a chilly late-November night in Turin.
After falling behind another potential relegation battler thanks to one of those classic “you did this to yourselves” kind of mistakes, Juventus’ young but incredibly talented No. 10 sprung into action. He tied things up mere seconds after Cagliari scored the opening goal on Saturday night, then put Juve ahead on the brink of halftime with a fantastic run through the Sardinians defensive third to score what proved to be the game-winner in a 2-1 victory at the Allianz Stadium. It was a win that Juventus desperately needed to not only keep pace with the top six in Serie A — boy, does that sound weird to type out considering this club’s history — but also cap a victorious week that also saw the Bianconeri claim their first European win of the 2025-26 season.
And they can thank their budding star for just that.
Or, as our buddy Sergio Romero said in the BWRAO writer group chat: “One team has Kenan Yildiz and the other one does not.”
It might sound simplistic, but it’s very much the truth. When Juventus needed Yildiz to snap the team out of their slumber and turn another deficit against a team in the bottom half of the table, there he was to do just that. This was a performance that really didn’t look very good until Yildiz’s first goal o the night, and that was something that clearly clicked things into gear after Juve’s latest defensive miscue at the back led to Cagliari taking the lead.
It’s funny because, for whatever reason (and maybe the fact that I’ve been writing these things for over a decade now), it was just the night prior that I was thinking to myself about when Yildiz’s last goal from open play in a Juventus jersey was.
Well, we don’t have to wonder any longer.
(For the record, it was in Juve’s wild 4-3 Derby d’Italia win over Inter Milan on Sept. 13. That’s a long time!)
You combine what Yildiz did against Cagliari with what he did against Bodø/Glimt midweek and it’s hard not to think that he’s looking more like the player from the beginning of the season as compared to the one who looked tired and worn out after playing so many minutes without much rest at all over the last month or so. Say whatever you want about the level of competition, but Juve needed Yildiz to be the Yildiz from August and September where he was easily one of the best players on the field. He did that in Norway. He did it again four days later back home in Turin.
And what a surprise — Juve ended up winning both of those games.
With Como winning on Friday, this win keeps Juventus in touching distance of Cesc Fabregas’ squad. There won’t be any sudden jumping a couple of spots in the table like the midweek win allowed Juve to do in the Champions League league phase table, but that was pretty much a given with what happened on Friday night. But seeing Luciano Spalletti getting his squad to win against a potential relegation battler as compared to what happened in Florence seven days earlier, that was the key for Juventus on Saturday night. As much as we await some big-time signs of Spalletti’s brand of ball, the results are the key to all of this.
Juve just need to take care of their own business and just hope those in front of them can continue to beat up on one another and provide a lane for some movement in the table in due time.
But hey, as we wait for all of that to actually happen, the good thing is that Juventus has Kenan Yildiz and other teams do not.
Or, at this point, maybe we should just start writing his name like KENAN YILDIZ when he does some things that are really cool like he did against Cagliari because he is very much continuing to live up to the Starboy nickname.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
Kenan Yildiz good.
Kenan Yildiz very, very good.
Personally, I think Juventus should just get this contract matter settled and give Yildiz a nice raise that comes with it. Do it — do it now.
And in typical Yildiz fashion, neither goal was what you would consider an easy finish. That boy good.
Prayer circle for Dusan Vlahovic’s muscle injury and that he won’t miss too much time. You don’t often see that kind of reaction to what looked to be a relatively simple shot attempt. But he knew something wasn’t right immediately and the frustration he showed as he walked off the field told me he might be thinking he’s going to miss a bit of time.
So if Loïs Openda and/or Jonathan David want to start scoring goals again like they did on Tuesday against Bodø/Glimt, that sure would be a nice little development.
An hour before kickoff, my senses perked up when I saw Mattia Perin was starting a second straight game when we all expected Michele Di Gregorio to be back in the starting lineup this weekend. “GOALKEEPER CONTROVERSY???” many probably thought to themselves. Nope, as Spalletti told DAZN before the game, Di Gregorio has been sick most of the week and he did want to rush Juve’s regular starter back after just one day of training. So there’s that. No controversy there.
That being said, Perin made a couple of nice saves and looked pretty cool in the yellow keeper kit. Pretty nice guy to have as your backup goalkeeper. (Breaking news there, I know. Just go with it.)
Look at me putting some praise on Filip Kostic in the Cagliari match preview and he goes out and makes just a boneheaded error that directly led to the opening goal. Thanks a bunch, Pippo.
That halftime hook of Kostic for Cambiaso made a lot of sense, too. This just wasn’t Kostic’s night — which, again, was totally great timing considering what I said about him about 18 hours earlier on this very website.
Of course it was an on-loan Inter player that scored the opening goal. Of course!
Pierre Kalulu assist on Yildiz’s second goal??? In that position in the final third??? Wowzers …
With all the praise for Yildiz going around — and rightfully so with the two goals he scored — let’s not forget that Francisco Conceição had himself a pretty good game himself. He probably deserved a goal. He could have had a goal! Either way, Chico played well and Juve need more of that.
Solid game from Lloyd Kelly. We’ll take those, lad.
More Fabio Miretti minutes. We’ll take those, too. He should get a nice amount of minutes for the Coppa Italia tie midweek against Udinese. Hopefully he keeps playing well.
Manuel Locatelli’s passing was pretty on point in this one. Didn’t matter if it was short- or long-range attempts, too. He pretty much nailed whatever pass he attempted.
Teun Koopmeiners didn’t get the yellow card that would have kicked in a one-game suspension, so he’s going to be available to face Napoli next weekend. Now let’s see if Federico Gatti or maybe even Gleison Bremer will be there along with him.
Since his start against Lazio on the first day of October, Joao Mario has played a grand total of … 22 minutes. In case you’ve forgotten, the first day of December is on Monday.
Still waiting for Edon Zhegrova to make his first Juventus start. Hopefully that day, whenever it happens, is a good day.
Juan Cabal was subbed on and didn’t get carded or give away a penalty. This feels like a small bit of progress over his last couple of appearances.
Juventus just won two games within four days. I still have some nice whiskey leftover from Thanksgiving. Maybe, just maybe, we might be pouring a glass of that because Juve didn’t make me want to throw something at the wall this week.