Round 24: Juventus vs. Lazio match preview

Through the first five weeks of 2026, there has been very little time for Juventus players and coaches to collect their collective breath. That is especially true of these past few weeks where midweek fixtures have been a constant and Luciano Spalletti has had maneuver through things in multiple competitions while having a squad that is not exactly flush with depth.

So as Juventus hit their last fixture before they get — gasp! — nearly a week off in between games, we’re left to wonder just how much the Bianconeri have left in the tank after their (late) midweek Coppa Italia disappointment in Bergamo.

As the second Derby d’Italia against league leaders Inter Milan looms in the distance a week from now, the immediate test comes against a Lazio squad that has seen plenty of frustration filter throughout the club both before and during the 2025-26 season. Sunday night’s matchup at the Allianz Stadium comes against an opponent in Lazio that put the final nail in Igor Tudor’s coffin back in late-October with a 1-0 victory over Juventus at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. A lot has happened in November, December, January and the first week of February since Juventus last faced Lazio, ousted Tudor and subsequently brought in Spalletti. A lot of it has been good, but there’s been a decent amount of those “not great” moments we’ve seen a good amount of the time from the Bianconeri over the last few years.

The most recent of that, regardless of how you felt about the final score in Bergamo, came on Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia against Atalanta, the second straight season that Juve have been bounced at that stage of the competition. (The first time since such an occurrence has happened since 2011, by the way.)

So all of three days after being eliminated from the Coppa, it’s now time to face a Lazio squad that has seen a few changes happen over the course of the winter transfer window after their summer embargo prevented them from doing any sort of business. Lazio enter Matchday 24 sitting in eighth place and well off the pace for a European qualification spot.

However, here’s something important to remember when it comes to this matchup:

• Juventus, following their Coppa Italia quarterfinal against Atalanta, last played on Thursday.
• Lazio, meanwhile, has yet to play a game in February, having last taken the field in their wild 3-2 win over Genoa on Jan. 30.

So, go ahead and do the quick math, folks. Come Sunday, Juventus will have last played three days ago. Lazio, though? Well, they last played nine days ago. Nine! That’s nearly a week and a half worth of rest. That’s nearly a week more of rest than the team they will be playing at the Allianz Stadium. Juventus will have played two full games since the last time Lazio played.

Ah, Serie A scheduling. Always the most logical and kind set of folks who figure all of this out.

Considering Juventus are short on depth even when they are full strength, it’s not like Spalletti has a whole lot of options to choose from. Even with so many games over the last three or four weeks, Spalletti hasn’t done much rotating his squad. All of his best players, no matter how many minutes they have had on their leg before 2026 arrived, have played the majority of the minutes. We are still waiting for Pierre Kalulu to actually not play a full 90 minutes this season — and we’re entering the third fixture of February.

That feels like almost as much of a test as facing a desperate Lazio itself. Just how much that Juve have in the tank entering Sunday night’s game is going to be a real key point of emphasis to pay attention to as the minutes tick away both before and after halftime at the Allianz.

Lazio are basically in the same place in the table now as they were when they faced Juventus the first time. Even after beating Juventus on Oct. 26, Maurizio Sarri’s squad was sitting in 10th place. Now, sitting in eighth, they are almost close to being part of a relegation fight (17) as they are to being even with Juventus in fourth (15). Lazio’s away form has been mediocre at best all season, with Serie A juggernauts like Sassuolo and Udinese having more points than Sarri has recorded away from the Olimpico in the 2025-26 campaign thus far.

The kicker in all of this: Even though they sit eighth in the table, they’ve scored the seventh-fewest amount of goals (24 in 23 games) this season and just sold one of their better strikers, Taty Castellanos, to West Ham last month for a reported €29 million. (Which, honestly, feels like a pretty good return for Lazio and their accounts.)

Even with the loss to Atalanta midweek, Juventus have been playing well on the whole. Now they have a still-inconsistent Lazio squad coming to Turin as both teams look to get an important three points for their respective objectives. With no more Coppa Italia, solidifying their spot in the top four might probably turns into even more of a priority for Spalletti than before. They got the help they needed from Udinese earlier in the week against Roma and now have fourth place all to themselves.

It’s now about what they do with it. Can Juventus keep it for themselves, or will this be another slip-up that makes the Coppa Italia quarterfinal loss look more than just a one-off against a good like like Atalanta.

TEAM NEWS

• Spalletti, unlike ahead of Thursday night’s visit to Bergamo, did hold a pre-match press conference on Saturday. The fact that he’s pretty much picking and choosing when to actually speak to the Italian media before games is making me laugh a little bit. (But also makes this section a little more difficult to do.)
• After not taking part in Thursday’s loss to Atalanta in the Coppa Italia, Spalletti confirmed that Kenan Yildiz and big smile as a result of his brand new contract will return to the lineup to face Lazio. Yildiz asked to be subbed off at halftime in last weekend’s win over Parma due to a minor overload issue that was likely the result of fatigue of his heavy workload this season.
• Spalletti said that both Francisco Conceição and Lloyd Kelly have trained separately following Thursday’s loss to Atalanta in the Coppa Italia and need further evaluation to see if they will be capable of playing in Sunday’s game against Lazio.
• The two sure bets to miss out on Sunday night’s game are the two names who have been ever-present on the injury list for a couple of months now: Dusan Vllahovic and Arek Milik.
• Vlahovic has, however, reportedly returned to Continassa this week and started the final steps of his rehab program that will hopefully have him back in the squad in early March.
• Two Juventus players are one yellow card away from having to serve a one-game suspension: Manuel Locatelli and Weston McKennie. Considering Juventus’ next opponent in Serie A is Inter, this feels like an important thing to remember for both players who have been key pieces to Spalletti’s success at Juventus.

JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH

Considering the fact that Spalletti has gone with a lot of the same players in his recent starting lineups, I was going to go ahead and talk about a certain French midfielder who has had a couple of off games just when it looked like he was starting to kick on form-wise.

Then somebody went and signed a new contract.

So when you combine that with the simple fact that Spalletti said Juve’s No. 10 will be returning to the lineup, it feels only right that we talk about the brightest of bright stars currently wearing a Juventus jersey.

Yildiz was a part of the traveling squad to Bergamo ahead of the Coppa Italia quarterfinals. He was on the bench. Heck, he was even warming up during the second half and looking he could even be a late sub before things got completely out of reach and Atalanta went on to stretch their lead beyond 1-0. Maybe it was all part of the plan by Spalletti to try and do a bit of a deke and make Raffaele Palladino think a little bit more than he already was.

But there’s no question as to whether Yildiz will be taking the field on Sunday night.

And as I type this out, I can only imagine what kind of reception he will be getting when he is first announced or the first few times on the ball knowing what has just taken place earlier this weekend when it comes to committing his future to a club that he truly loves.

Would seeing Yildiz face Inter next weekend knowing he was on two weeks worth of rest be something incredibly enticing? Oh, absolutely. This young man has done so many good things this season with hundreds upon hundreds of minutes in his legs every week, so can you imagine what it would be like after a couple of weeks worth of rest? That is a nice proposition, but obviously one where it’s more for our respective thought processes rather than a reality that will play out.

You know Yildiz will be fired up to be back on the field after missing out on Thursday’s loss to Atalanta. Plus, you know he will be fired up to have a big-time performance the day after he signed his big new contract as well. The young man only be 20 years old, but he is well aware of the moment and his place in it. What a better way to say he is worth of said new contract and the big pay raise that comes with it than to help Juventus to a big three points at a time in which they’re looking to get back on track after a tough loss.

One game against eighth-place Lazio won’t define just how worthy Yildiz is of this new contract. But you better believe he wants to start this run of his new contract a lot like he did with the last one he signed about 18 months ago.

MATCH INFO

When: Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026.

Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 8:45 p.m. local time in Italy 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.

HOW TO WATCH

Television: Fox Deportes (United States); TLN (Canada); TNT Sports 1 (United Kingdom).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, Amazon Prime USA, DAZN USA, fuboTV, FoxSports.com, Fox Sports app, Fox One (United States); DAZN Canada; fubo Sports Network 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.