For the overwhelming majority of Thursday night's trip to the Netherlands, Juventus looked like a team that, somewhat surprisingly, was in control of things. They had a 2-0 lead, their defense was looking rather solid and AZ Alkmaar was being forced to settle for low-percentage shots through traffic that ended up doing exactly as you think they might have — next to nothing.
Around the 70th or 75th minute, though, things changed.
And in a hurry.
From that point on, what was looking like it could be a relatively calm trip across the finish line turned into anything but that. Not only did AZ Alkmaar cut Juve's lead in half, but they nearly tied things up, only for a very close — yet also very obvious — offside call there to save the day. Juventus held on for the 2-1 victory to make finish the first half of the Europa League league phase with a win, but it was another instance of just how quickly things can change for this team when they're either disrupted by their own mistakes, some questionable individual efforts or just about anything else you can think of that applies here.
But it was a win, and Juventus will be taking three points back with them to Turin, moving one step closer to a potential finish in the top eight and not having to shoehorn two more games into the schedule for a squad that has played a ton of minutes over the last 3 1/2 weeks.
That stretch is nearly over, though. That nine-game run over the span of 29 days is about to hit its last step come this weekend in Florence. After that, an international break where … there probably won't be a lot of rest for a decent chunk of the squad that isn't actually injured. For the others, they can get some sort of respite from the hellacious fixture list that we've seen this team go through between the first and second international breaks of the 2026-27 season.
The thing is, after falling from the top of the Europa League table with their draw against Stade Rennes a couple of weeks ago, Juve are now back to winning in Europe. It's not the European competition we want them to be in, but with 10 points through the first four Europa League fixtures of the season, they're sitting in fifth place and in a good spot as the fixture left to close out the league phase looks a lot more friendly than what we've seen in September, October and now November.
And, just in case you're wondering, you can try and do a little math now, too. Why? Because of this:
Last season, a top-eight finish was at the 16-point mark.
The year before, the first with the league phase format, a top-eight finish was at the 14-point mark.
Juventus are basically two wins away from doing hitting that mark. And with two teams that are sitting in 18th and 33rd in the Europa League table after Thursday night's results, respectively, things are looking good for trying to hit that 16-point figure with some room to spare on the schedule.
In those closing minutes it didn't look like that was going to be the case, though. Not when Guglielmo Vicario had to fly through the air and stop a close-range shot — and then try and kick the rebound of it out as he basically sat on his backside — before we knew that there was going to be a VAR call actually work in Juventus' favor and wipe out the goal that momentarily made it 2-2. Or, honestly, just for much of those final 10 or so minutes when Juve's defense looked like it was ready to break after barely having Vicario do much before AZ Alkmaar actually got on the scoreboard in the 88th minute.
So, yes, I am quite thankful that Juventus' defense that, for some reason, Luciano Spalletti felt like shaking up in the final 10 or so minutes actually held on despite how much of a mess they were trying to close things out. It didn't look like they actually would do it, but they did — which is a far cry from how they were for a large portion of this game.
Maybe it was a lucky win in that sense. But, as a team, Juventus also did a lot of things right before those final 15 minutes or so. I'm sure that all of you, like myself, would have preferred things to be a little less of a hang-on-for-dear-life kind of situation to close out the win, but as we know this team doesn't exactly do "easy win" all that well these days.
Ah well.
So here's to the latest three points Juventus claimed in Europe. Let's just hope they don't play like that again down the final stretch of the game the next time they take the field. That sure would be nice.
I have gotten this far without mentioning that in the Derby della Koopmeiners, it was Juventus' Koopmeiners who came out on top against his younger brother. Personally, I like that outcome even his Peer Koopmeiners sounds like a very nice young man and a solid footballer on top of it.
Speaking of the Koopmeiners on Juventus' roster, that man not only scored a goal but had a really solid performance once again. One could argue that he's up there with the best Juventus players on the field on Thursday night. The goal was a classic kind of one he scored when he was wearing blue and black in Bergamo and his defensive work and overall effort in his own half the field was pretty good, too.
The guy who certainly is the top pick for Man of the Match is the guy who assisted Koopmeiners' opening goal: Randal Kolo Muani. Playing about as much of a pure winger role as we've seen him do this season, Kolo Muani looked, to put it simply, really damn good. His assist to Koopmeiners was very good. His goal was even better. He did a whole lot of other good things on top of all that. This was the version of Kolo Muani that Juventus surely hoped they were signing this summer. The thing was, it didn't come as a No. 9. So now we have that added element to things that Spalletti has to try and figure out over the break as some players begin to get healthy again.
Kerim Alajbegović is fun and I am happy he is a Juventus player.
That man just gets so much velocity on what feels like every shot he takes and I thought he got another banger to his name in the first half. Alas, it was just over the crossbar, but it was a pretty dangerous effort nonetheless.
Pape Matar Sarr also did a whole lot of work off the ball in the defensive phase of things. Between himself and the Juventus side of the Koopmeiners battle, there sure were a lot of recoveries and and ground duels won. I'm good with that.
So basically when Pierre Kalulu overhits a cross and it goes to nobody well past the far post I have a little bit of a groan and a sad face because I remember what his crossing was like this time 12 months ago. Ah, those were the days, my friends.
I know it didn't officially count, but Vicario's effort on that shot that for a couple of minutes made it 2-2 was just insane in the best possible way. Did he actually mess up his shoulder in the process? Who knows, but that man deserved a bit of a break after an effort like that. And yet, it wasn't an official save. This game is funny sometimes, ain't it?
And it is now I just looked at the stats and realized that AZ Alkmaar had twice as many shots as Juventus.
Juventus had two shots on goal.
Juventus scored two goals.
That is what we can efficiency. Shame that they couldn't keep that rate going …
Another good Federico Gatti game? Yep, another one for him.
Spalletti screaming at Juan Cabal in the closing moments felt appropriate. This wasn't the same encouraging Cabal performance like we saw over the weekend.
It's Jeff Ekhator! (Who also got a bit of a talking to from Spalletti just after the final whistle.)
Just as we predicted back in August: Bournemouth are second in the Europa League table, Ferencváros are in third and Union Saint-Gilloise are in fourth right ahead of Juventus. Yep, just as everybody predicted.
Somewhat unrelated to this game (but releated to Ferencváros), but AC Milan are 29th in the Europa League table. That's amusing. (I will disregard the current Serie A standings for the sake of having a laugh about just how bi-polar Milan have been domestically compared to their results in Europe.)
One more game to go in this month-long run without much rest at all. I dunno about you all, but I am very tired. I need a nap. And some midweek days in which I can actually not worry about Juventus for a change. That will be nice — your boys at BWRAO need an international break to recharge.
Based on what I just said, I have a favor to ask of Juventus: Please don't play like you did the last time you faced Fiorentina. For the love of God (or whatever you pray to), please don't repeat that.
At the very least I don't have to worry about Fiorentina scoring a goal at the near post against Michele Di Gregorio again. So, for that alone, things might be better compared to what happened in the spring.
So, rest up, everybody. One more game to go before we all get a break.
