When the Europa League fixture list was released a couple of months ago, you saw the official midway point of the league phase and the matchup against AZ Alkmaar as the likely toughest one of the bunch. A trip to Spain to face Celta Vigo would be challenging, so would Real Sociedad on the final day of the league phase where they could be a spot in the top eight and two less fixtures at stake.
That trip to the Netherlands is here. And so is Juventus' second Europa League fixture against a Dutch opponent in the first four games of the league phase this season.
The catch, as you might expect, is that Thursday night's opponent at the AFAS Stadion is going to be much, much better than what Juventus saw against NEC Nijmegen back in mid-September. Now, not only are Juventus playing a better Dutch opponent than what they saw seven weeks ago, but they are looking to get a result against a better Netherlands-based club on Dutch soil. That means Juventus will, just like when they went to Celta Vigo, be playing in a smaller yet very intense environment and try to keep their high standing in the league phase table going.
Although, that standing entering Matchday 4 is not the same as it was as Matchday 3.
OK, so being in seventh in a 36-team table isn't the worst thing in the (Europa League) world to see as we approach the midway point of the league phase. And considering the goal is to get into the top eight so you don't have to go into the play-off round and add to more games to your schedule, sitting where Juventus currently are is not a bad thing. But, it's also not as good as top of the league phase table like they were after Matchday 2.
And with arguably the toughest opponent on the league phase schedule set to line up against you on Thursday night, that's a position in the table that might look worse when things are over and done for as they head back to Italy in the wee hours of the morning.
The situation is a lot like it was this past weekend against Napoli: Juventus are short-handed with injuries up and down the roster, they're going into this tie with limited options and they will again have to prove that they're a squad that can be competitive like they were on Sunday night compared to last week's midweek trip to the Luigi Ferraris. The Napoli performance will either be looked at as a bit of a Band-Aid, or maybe the start of this team showing that they're not completely dead in the water as the calendar turns to November and we reached the final two games of this hectic nine-game stretch over the course of 29 days.
It's also fair to say that AZ Alkmaar aren't entering the matchup with Juventus in the best of shape, either. It wasn't so long again this season that they were sitting atop the Eredivisie table. Now, thanks to a four-game winless stretch — and three of those being losses — they've dropped down to fifth place in the league standings and are coming off back-to-back shutouts domestically against Twente and Ajax.
Now, those are two teams in Twente and Ajax who are ahead of AZ Alkmaar in the standings, so it's not like they're losing to clubs like NEC who are sitting just above the relegation zone in the Eredivisie. But it's also a sign that they are not playing as well as they were earlier in the season, and that could very well mean a banged-up Juventus squad could very well get a win even though they're playing away from home.
That's not to say they will, of course. We know this Juventus team can tease us from time to time these last couple of years and then crash back down to earth like they did against Genoa last week. But if they are more like what we saw against Napoli more than anything else, than getting a third win in the first four Europa League fixtures of the season feels like it's possible.
Hopefully that's the case because the sooner they can make it look like a finish in the top eight of the league phase table is a certainty the better. Nobody wants to see Juventus go into the final couple of league phase fixtures with their standing in the top eight in doubt. It's time for Luciano Spalletti's squad to show us they can rebound from tough defeats rather than just continue this cycle of a few good things happening before the inevitable crash again.
If you were hoping that Juventus would get out of the weekend without any sort of injury concerns, well … you might want to reconsider that.
That's mostly because Spalletti will be without one of his favorites on this Juve roster, midfielder Weston McKennie, who was not called up for the trip to the Netherlands. Much of the reporting around it suggests that McKennie — who came off at halftime of Sunday's win over Napoli — was more out of caution rather than because he's expected to miss a decent amount of time. Let's hope that's the case and McKennie is back in the squad that plays Fiorentina this weekend.
With McKennie out, he joins a list of players not called up that includes: Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Khephren Thuram, Francisco Conceição, Zeki Çelik, Nico González and Kamil Grabara.
As a reminder, Edon Zhegrova is not part of Juventus' UEFA squad list for the league phase.
Now on the squad, though, is striker Jeff Ekhator, who replaced Manuel Locatelli for the rest of the league phase. Ekhator was called up to a matchday squad for the first time as a Juve player this past weekend.
Three Next Gen players were also included in the squad to face AZ Alkmaar: Destiny Elimoghale, Antonio Merola and Filippo Pagnucco. (There's technically a fourth in there, Agosto Owusu, but he has been a regular since Locatelli got injured.)
Spalletti was rather talkative when it came to who may or may not play from the start against AZ Alkmaar. He said: "(Pape Matar) Sarr will start, as will (Andrea0 Cambiaso, whilst Douglas Luiz needs a breather. Either Bremer or (Jhon) Lucumí will also be rested initially."
Spalletti also said Juventus will play with "three forwards" up front on Thursday night. Who knows if that means two strikers plus somebody like Kerim behind them or if it's a lone striker with a couple of wingers supporting him.
When Teun Koopmeiners lines up against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday night, he won't only be facing the side that he grew up at and was at until 2021 before his move to Atalanta, but he will also see somebody with the same surname as him in red and white.
That is because we will probably see not one but two members of the Koopmeiners family on the field at the AFAS Stadion. There will be Teun, but there will also be Peer in the midfield for AZ Alkmaar.
Let Koop-A-Palooza commence!
At his pre-match press conference on Wednesday, Koopmeiners described the chance to play against his brother Peer as something that is "really special." And, considering I am an only child, I have no idea what it's like to play alongside a sibling let alone play against them in a high-level competition.
So not only does Juventus' Koopmeiners brother have the feelings of facing his former team, he also gets to play against his younger brother.
"When we were little, we played loads of matches together and we've already come up against each other in two friendlies, but tomorrow will be different because it's an official match," the older Koopmeiners said during the pre-match press conference. "It'll be quite a thrill, especially if we manage to win. He's very competitive, even though he'll always be my brother."
There's also this: Juventus' Koopmeiners brother will be quite important on Thursday night. With McKennie back in Turin, Douglas Luiz getting a rest as Spalletti has told us and Locatelli the longest of long-term injuries on the current roster amongst outfield players, Juve need Koopmeiners to have a good night. He likely won't be playing any sort of deep-lying role like Douglas Luiz has recently, but the role he plays will be vital. Juventus need the Koopmeiners that has had good moments lately rather than the Koopmeiners that has struggled for large swaths of his career in Turin.
And to potentially do it in a midfield where he will likely be going in on tackles on his younger brother? That might just be a juicy little storyline to pay attention to throughout the night as Juve try to get back in the win column in the Europa League.
At the very least, maybe we will be able to figure out which Koopmeiners brother is the better of the two.
When: Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026.
Where: AFAS Stadion, Alkmaar, Netherlands.
Official kickoff time: 8:45 p.m. local time in the Netherlands and across Europe, 7:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, 1:45 p.m. Central time, 11:45 a.m. Pacific time.
Television: TNT Sports 4 (United Kingdom), Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 252 (Italy).
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