At this point, the general feeling regarding Juventus’ month of February is something that doesn’t exactly involve the kind of language that the bosses would like us to write within the body of this post. You know those thoughts, however, have been expressed offline, and that the reality of Juve’s big second month of 2026 has been far from what they’ve needed to see take place to get some serious late-season moment building.
In short, Juventus’ February has been a massive letdown.
They’re out of the Coppa Italia. Their Champions League hopes are on life support, if not on the brink of flat-lining entering next week’s second leg. And in Serie A, the battle for fourth place sees Juve now out of the top four as we start to approach the point in the season where we count the number of games remaining on our two hands.
So after allowing 13 goals in their last four games and not winning any of them — almost like these two things are connected! — Juve return home to try and record a get-right kind of win over a Como side that is directly behind them in the Serie A standings. Both teams are coming off midweek disappointment in their respective fixtures, but the fact that Como is all of four points behind Juve in the standings is a reminder of just how big of a game this is both to simply keep pace with those in front of them at minimum and to potentially gain ground and get closer to the top four if anybody were to slip up this weekend.
Saturday afternoon’s fixture certainly has a delicate kind of tone to it considering what took place the last time Juventus were on the field and seeing one of their heaviest European defeats take place. The Allianz Stadium has been starting to sound a little bit like better days of years past, but the reality of the squad’s current form could very well make for a return of the anxious kind of vibe that has been present in Turin the last few years.
But hey, at least Nico Paz will be suspended after getting a yellow card against AC Milan on Wednesday, right?
At this rate, any sort of good news is welcome. That’s simply because there hasn’t been a lot of good news in February. It’s starting to look a lot like last February, with only a few short days to go before Serie A likely becomes Juventus’ only point of concentration. That is, unless a minor miracle can happen against the same team that just romped to a 5-2 win over these same Juve players who are looking awfully tired at the moment.
But rest?
Ha, there is no rest when it comes to this game in The Year of Our Lord 2026.
So now as they prepare to play their sixth fixture within the span of the first three weeks in February, Juventus have to figure something out — and fast — to try and just get back on track and potentially back into the win column. What is that knowing that their depth is lacking and their most important players are either showing signs of fatigue, are banged up in more ways than one, both of those previous two options or just simply not available? It’s hard to really say. But when it comes to what Luciano Spalletti can fix in the immediate future, there’s really only one thing that can try and do.
Just get back on the horse. No matter how tired you may be.
“We acknowledge the latest results and now we have to decide what to do about them and how to react: it is our awareness of the team’s strength that will tell us how things will turn out,” Spalletti said during Friday’s pre-match press conference. “We need to analyze the situation correctly and objectively, using this pain as a springboard to propel us upwards again. I spoke of three steps back after the match in Istanbul against Galatasaray. We discussed this with the players in a meeting, and I hope that these three steps back will serve as a running start to give us more momentum and a great reaction in the upcoming challenges.”
Juventus have the second leg against Galatasaray next up on the schedule. They have a trip to the Italian capital after that next weekend. The month of February has been unrelenting and is showing that the good things that Spalletti has done sometimes can’t overcome the shortcomings that this team still very much has. But first they need to try and get back on track against a Como side that are still very much in play to get into European football next season.
They may be without their best player on Saturday, but Como are not going to be an easy three points that Juventus can bank on by any stretch. Nico Paz might be watching the game by the famous lake, but there are still plenty of other players that can do damage in Turin this weekend. We know that based simply on what happened these two teams played each other back in mid-October when Igor Tudor’s final days as manager at the club were approaching.
While Spalletti isn’t in that territory when it comes to his job status, we are seeing the same kind of things go wrong for Juventus that we saw take place 12 months ago. There’s probably more faith in Spalletti turning things around more than the previous two managers that Juve has had, but there’s going to have to a massive amount of improvement — and fast — if Juve want to see that big matchup against Roma next weekend be one that has us feeling good about this squad again.
It starts with what they do against Como on Saturday. And hopefully it just goes a little bit different than what we saw alongside Lake Como four months ago.
TEAM NEWS
- Juventus will be sporting their new fourth kit for Saturday’s game against Como. It was inspired by the shirt the squad sported during the 1996-97 season.
- To the surprise of nobody around here, Pierre Kalulu still has to serve a one-game suspension for his undeserved double yellow against Inter despite the fact that just about everybody involved has said he didn’t deserve any of it. So yeah, no surprise there considering what league this is and who runs it.
- The man who would have stepped in for Kalulu — who won’t be in Juve’s starting lineup for the first time this season on Saturday — against Como is also injured, with Emil Holm picking up a muscle injury that will keep him out for at least a month.
- Spalletti also ruled out Gleison Bremer for Saturday’s matchup against Como, with the big Brazilian defender still very much in “day-to-day” territory and in a race to be healthy enough for the second leg against Galatasaray on Wednesday.
- While Bremer has been ruled out, Spalletti said that Jonathan David will be back in the squad after missing the first leg against Galatasaray. He likely won’t be in the starting lineup having trained separately all week, but it’s at least an option off the bench for Spalletti during a time in which he has very little wiggle room.
- Besides Bremer and Holm, the only two other injured players are Dusan Vlahovic and (of course) Arek Milik.
- When asked about a potential change in goal, Spalletti reaffirmed that Michele Di Gregorio is Juventus’ starter despite recent criticism about how he’s played domestically and in Europe.
- Two Juventus players, Weston McKennie and Manuel Locatelli, are one yellow card away from having to serve a one-game suspension. With Roma next up domestically, this feels like an important thing to note.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
No Bremer. No real fullbacks available. (Well, technically there are, but they’re not exactly defensive specialists, which feels a little bit of the purpose being defeated.) No really defensive stability of late.
So, yeah, Let’s just go ahead and talk about somebody in defense.
If not for Federico La Penna’s disastrous showing as the match referee last weekend against Inter, there is no doubt that the Federico who would be drawing the most amount of ire of a lot of Juve supports would be the one with the surname of Gatti. If only his form since coming back from injury had look as good as his hair is looking these days as compared to what his form has been over his past handful of appearances meniscus surgery.
With Kalulu being suspended and Bremer being ruled out for Saturday’s game against Como, many expect Spalletti to switch to more of a back three setup that he used during his first few weeks as Juventus manager. And as a result of all of that, that would mean Gatti is back in the starting lineup for just his second start of the 2026 calendar year.
In his previous four appearances since coming back into the fold in the new year, Gatti has looked — as you would expect from somebody who missed nearly two months due to knee surgery — rusty and far from how he played for much of last season when he was the walking definition of gritting his teeth through fatigue. But in those four appearances, Gatti has looked rusty and slow, and none was more representative of that after he came on for Bremer late in the first half against Galatasaray.
Against a Nico Paz-less Como, Juve will still be under plenty of pressure because that is how Cesc Fabregas’ squad wants to try and attack you. That means Gatti — along with Lloyd Kelly and likely Teun Koopmeiners if it is a back three from Spalletti — will be a busy man and trying to slow down a Como squad that is one of the highest-scoring teams in Serie A this season.
We don’t know how long Bremer will be out of action. But we do know that while he is out, Juve will need somebody to step up in his absence. Gatti seems like one of the biggest options to do that — as long as he looks more like the player from last season rather than the one we’ve seen the last few weeks.
MATCH INFO
When: Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026.
Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 3 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe, 2 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 9 a.m. Eastern time, 8 a.m. Central time, 6 a.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: No over-the-air or cable channels available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom or Italy.
Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA, fuboTV (United States); DAZN Canada; fuboTV Canada (Canada); DAZN UK (United Kingdom); DAZN Italy (Italy).
Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Bluesky. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.