The first two days of Matchday 33 have been very kind for Juventus’ potential standing in fourth place — and that was even before the Bianconeri stepped foot onto the field for Sunday night’s matchup against Bologna. Every single domino they needed to fall their way did, and they had the chance to put some serious breathing room between themselves and the two teams directly behind them in the standings.
Well, I gotta say, you couldn’t have drawn up MD33 much better than how it’s played out.
Juventus got up early against Bologna thanks to Jonathan David’s goal within two minutes. They extended their lead early in the second half through another header, this one from Khephren Thuram all of 11 minutes after he came on. The result was a 2-0 win that, combined with Como and Roma both dropping points on Friday and Saturday, respectively, allowed Luciano Spalletti’s squad to extend their lead over their closest competition for fourth place to five points with five points to go. For the first time in a long time, Juve have the breathing room they had absolutely none of when the March international break arrived four weeks ago.
Opportunity offered up and opportunity seized upon.
Sn now, just a few weeks after looking like Juventus were in serious danger of not making the Champions League, they’re suddenly just three points off second-place AC Milan. And guess who’s next up on the schedule? Ah, you guessed it — it’s that crazy corto muso-loving man who just saw his team win 1-0 on Sunday despite being outshot by more than a 2-to-1 margin by the 19th-place team in the league.
Even more the wild: Juventus are now closer to second place (three points) than they are fifth place (five points).
Even the most optimistic of people — and sometimes I like to think of myself as one of those that try to be of that ilk rather than the alternative as much as this club tries to make it the opposite kind of situation — couldn’t have seen this sudden changing of the tides coming. Of course, it’s nowhere near over and to actually think it’s over would be a huge mistake, but this is huge swing of both how we’re looking at Juventus’ final stretch of games and the entire scope of the race for the top four.
Did you think that in the final weekend of April that Juventus could go into the San Siro and potentially move level on points with second-place Milan after we saw this same team struggle to get a draw against Sassuolo right before the March international break? Because I didn’t!
Yet here we are. And this is because as much as all of these results happening around Juventus have been a massive help — and, believe me, I don’t have to say that again — they have had to take care of their business, too. So many times over the last few years we’ve seen Juventus get help from others and then not take advantage of it. This time around, though, they most certainly have.
The early goal was a huge boon, but just the way they came out and really took it to Bolgona early on was reflective of a team that knew that they head to take full advantage of what was in front of them. There was no loitering around. They got the lead, they kept pushing forward and really should have been up by two or three goals heading into the half. A little bit better finishing and they would have been. But, this is still Juventus in 2026, so we can’t always have nice things when it comes to wins being of the simple and straightforward variety.
The good thing is that we’re not sitting here being totally down because Juventus smoked their chance to go five points clear of Como and Roma. They didn’t fumble away the 1-0 lead like a Gigio Donnarumma howler. (Timely reference!) They didn’t allow Bologna to get back in the game and score on their first shot on goal of the game like we’ve seen so many teams do against Juve this season.
This was another instance of Good Juventus showing up. And it’s showing up at the right time of the season. This isn’t over and we know that things can change quickly again, but Spalletti has managed these last few weeks as well as he has all season. As other teams are faltering, Juve are just getting stuff (or another word) done — and that’s all we can continue to ask of them entering the final month of the season. You know, just like they did against Bologna.
I really am just glad that the 20-minute Kenan Yildiz cameo when Juve were already up 2-0 and in complete control didn’t end up in anything bad based on how he’s been a big worry throughout the week.
Also find it fitting that as Juventus get set to face their old pal Max Allegri for the first time at the San Siro since their split a couple of years ago that Yildiz has let his hair grow out as long as we’ve seen in a while. This is relevant if you remember recent Juventus history following Yildiz’s senior team debut.
I can’t be the only one who was getting extremely emotional even before kickoff thanks to that tribute to former Juve goalkeeper Alex Manninger, who tragically died at age 48 after a traffic accident earlier this week.
The whole thing was extremely well done by the club on short notice. To bring out five of his teammates — Gigi Buffon, Giorgio Chiellini, Claudio Marchisio, Leonardo Bonucci and Antonio Chimenti — and then put down flowers and his No. 13 jersey right at the top of the penalty area as the entire stadium clapped in applause shows you what kind of respect Manninger had at the club despite being there for a relatively short amount of time (four years).
There’s no easy way to transition out of that, but we will do it anyways.
Thankfully, after there were clearly plenty of emotions going through the Allianz Stadium, there pops up Jonathan David with his first goal in 2 1/2 months. That was just a brilliant cross from Pierre Kalulu (again) and a nice finish from a striker in David who you don’t really associate with his ability to finish crosses in the air. Yet he found a nice little pocket of space and headed the Kalulu cross perfectly. Just a great start to such an important game.
And Thuram’s header? Same type of deal. Really is amazing that Juventus scored two great headers off equally impressive crosses for what feels like the first time in quite a while.
The man who assisted Thuram’s goal? Weston McKennie. Because that’s just what Wes does.