When Edon Zhegrova arrived at Juventus, he was in a very precarious state. He got a move to a big club in a new country that he had sought last summer, but he was also coming off a long-term injury that he clearly hadn't totally gotten past. Therefore, no matter which manager Juve had, it was an uphill battle to make a good early impression — or maybe one at all — in very limited minutes simply because his body wouldn't let him do much more than that.
Twelve months later, Zhegrova is still trying to crack a Juventus starting lineup that has Francisco Conceição fully entrenched as the main option on the right wing.
But, after the longest in-season international break we've ever seen, Zhegrova looks to be in the kind of shape that we probably couldn't say at this time last year … or at any point during the 2025-26 season.
Maybe ironically in some ways, some of his strongest signals of that have come during this international break. His performances with Kosovo with both encouraging and flashes of the Zhegorva that Juventus hoped they were signing last summer with Damien Comolli's algorithms were running the show on the transfer market. In an international break that was jam-packed full of fixtures, Zhegrova started twice, played 45-plus minutes three times and appeared in all four of Kosovo's Nations League fixtures.
The end result: A goal against Austria, an assist in the second Nations League matchup against Austria and four very encouraging performances that might suggest he's getting back on the right track.
OK, so Sofascore ratings aren't the be-all, end-all when it comes to how a player faired on a certain night, but that's pretty good indication that Zhegrova certainly had a productive international break. And for a player who has had plenty of starts and stops (when he actually got chances to play) over these past 12 months, then to see a little bit of the Zhegrova of old is never a bad thing.
Same goes for doing stuff like this when you're setting up a teammate for a goal.
Is Zhegrova back? At this point, it's hard to have a definitive idea. But when you compare where he was physically about 12 months ago to where he is now, it's a vast improvement. And the more he is playing like that, then the more he can potentially become a reliable option for Luciano Spalletti this season.
If only he was on the Europa League squad list, right?
When it comes to Spalletti, he knows he's got a talent in Zhegrova. He said this about Zhegrova in a recent interview with Tuttosport: "If he could only complete himself a little more, you will see Zhegrova: he can become a top player." For somebody who didn't seem to trust Zhegrova much last season, Spalletti could very well be changing his tune as we hit the first busy portion of the 2026-27 season .
And we sure as heck know that with nine games in 29 days, Juventus will need every bit of depth that they currently have available to Spalletti. That means Zhegrova will get chances to play — and hopefully continue what he did during the international break and against Sassuolo before that.
At the very least, we know that Zhegrova is going to return to Turin with plenty of swag in those baggy shorts of his. The man's confidence must be trending upward, and that means the tricks and flicks we've come to expect from him could very well become even more of a regular thing than they already are.
