Juventus submit squad for Champions League knockout rounds

Usually when Juventus submits its squad for each phase of the Champions League, there are very few surprises. And, for pretty much every time around outside of the Stephan Lichtsteiner exclusion cases, it’s pretty much every name you would expect to be on there.

Friday brought Juve’s latest Champions League squad list.

And, as you can probably guess, every name was on there — except for the lone long-term injury the squad is currently dealing with.

Juventus’ 24-man squad list for the upcoming Champions League knockout rounds has a little more Italian flavor to it with Leonardo Spinazzola and some high socks in the form of Marin Caceres, but the one notable name not on the list is winger Juan Cuadrado. Not that it’s a complete surprise seeing as the speedy Colombian has been out since mid-December — and will likely miss a few more months — due to injury and subsequent knee surgery just before the new year.

The full list is as follows:

1 Szczesny

2 De Sciglio

3 Chiellini

4 Caceres

5 Pjanic

6 Khedira

7 Ronaldo

10 Dybala

11 D.Costa

12 Alex Sandro

14 Matuidi

15 Barzagli

17 Mandzukic

18 Kean (B List)

19 Bonucci

20 Joao Cancelo

21 Pinsoglio

22 Perin

23 Emre Can

24 Rugani

30 Bentancur

33 Bernardeschi

37 Spinazzola

(Does anybody still find it a little weird that there’s no players wearing Nos. 8 or 9 this season? Because it still is something I’m getting used to whenever I see one of Juve’s match day squads posted on the club’s website.)

See? No real surprises outside of Cuadrado. And that’s if you had any kind of hunch that Cuadrado would be 100 percent by the time the Champions League quarterfinals or semifinals roll around ... if Juventus are fortunate enough to advance that far in the competition.

I guess the only real questions we have that are Champions League related are...

1. Will Juventus have more healthy center backs than injured center backs by the time the first leg against Atletico Madrid arrives on Feb. 20?
2. Will Juventus stop playing like complete idiots so they have a shot at making it past the Champions League Round of 16?

We’ll know both of those answers in a little less than three weeks. Isn’t that exciting?!?!