Juventus announce squad list for Champions League knockout rounds

February is the shortest month of the year. Over the next month, Juventus has one of its busiest four-week periods. Because of that, it means that the Round of 16 in the Champions League is rapidly approaching and ready to occupy a good portion of our Juve-related thoughts.

With it comes the customary announcement of who will be wearing a Juventus jersey come a couple weeks from now when the Italian champions face Tottenham in the first leg of their Round of 16 tie. Behold, the 23 players — potential primavera call-ups if needed excluded — that will be available to Max Allegri for the two legs against Tottenham and hopefully beyond:

Just like last season, there are two noticeable differences to what Juve’s Champions League squad list looked like for the six group stage games.

Stephan Lichtsteiner is back in the squad for the knockout round after not being included for the group stage. With Mattia de Sciglio healthy again, it most certainly will be nice to have a natural right back available for however long Juventus’ run in the Champions League knockout phase goes.

And with the arrival of one defender, another one goes. Benedikt Howedes, the man who has more months out due to injury than appearances to his name this season, has been excluded from the squad list. That is basically a massive hint into how long Juve think he will be out for due to injury. (Obviously they’ve been able to survive without him this season, so it’s not like this is something we should freak out about.)

Also of note, Marko Pjaca is out of the knockout round squad just as he was for the group stage because he’s off on loan at Schalke. (And looks to be enjoying himself, too.)

Since there are no controversial exclusions or anything like that, I guess we will now argue about Carlo Pinsoglio’s role on the team and how Stefano Sturaro will be used in some kind of whacky winger role when there are better options available.

(Don’t actually do that.)