Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Maccabi Haifa

You don’t have to hold multiple fancy college degrees to know what kind of situation Juventus finds themselves in entering the third game of the Champions League group stage.

Juve need points. They need points in a hurry. And they need others who are currently in front of them in the group table to drop points.

Unfortunately, Juventus can only directly control part of those necessities above. And, if it’s any kind of help in terms of the fixture list, Juve has the worst team in the group next up on the schedule in the next two group stage games. So, if there ever was a chance to get some much-needed points in a hurry, this is the situation in which Juventus can do just that.

But they still have to do just that.

It hasn’t been very often in which Juventus has been sitting on zero points through their first two group stage games in recent history. Because of it, Juve enters tonight’s game against Maccabi Haifa with essentially a win-or-Europa-League kind of potential outcome staring them right in the face. If Juventus drops points again and falls further behind either of Paris Saint-Germain or Benfica — or both! — then the chances of advancing to the Champions League knockout round becomes even slimmer than they already are.

Three points, they are mandatory against this game.

It doesn’t matter who plays, how many people are sitting in the stadium or anything else you want to throw into the equation, Juventus needs three points on this night in the worst possible way.

It would be another step in getting this season back on track. It wouldn’t be in full, of course, but Juventus’ recovery from a winless September can continue tonight with a victory over the minnows of the group. That’s pretty much the only option here, folks.

MATCH INFO

When: Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022.

Where: Juventus Stadium, Turin, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time in Italy and around Europe, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-3-3): Szczesny; Cuadrado, Bremer, Danilo, De Sciglio; McKennie, Paredes, Rabiot; Di Maria, Vlahovic, Kostic.

Juventus bench: Perin, Pinsoglio, Alex Sandro, Gatti, Bonucci, Rugani, Locatelli, Miretti, Fagioli, Milik, Kean, Soulé.

Maccabi Haifa starting XI (5-3-2): Cohen; Mohamed, Sundgren, Batubinsika, Goldberg, Cornud; Chery, Seck, Abu Fani; Pierrot, Tchibota.

Maccabi Haifa bench: Fucs, Mashpati, Lavi, Atzili, Haziza, Menachem, Rukavytsya, Arad, David, Levi, Eliyahu, Gershon.

HOW TO WATCH

Television: BT Sport 8 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno (Italy).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); DAZN (Canada); BT Sport app, BTSport.com (United Kingdom); SKY Go Italia, Mediaset Infinity (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 Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.