Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Barcelona

It’s time for Round 2 of Juventus’ tour of the United States, everybody.

This is still very much a July friendly, but this is also going to be a July friendly in which Juventus will see a significant step up in competition from its previous July friendly.

So, yes, that should be a fun little piece of information to keep track of on this night. And there’s also the fun fact that a certain player on the Juventus roster who didn’t play a second against Chivas in Las Vegas will almost certainly get to play in front of family in friends at a stadium that’s all of about half an hour away from where he grew up.

Yes, this is the Weston McKennie comeback game to Texas even though he’s had those with the U.S. men’s national team before. But that’s never happened at the club level, so that’s going to be a cool little wrinkle on this second friendly of the U.S. tour, this one against Barcelona, which is working on one fewer day of rest after its own friendly this past weekend in Las Vegas.

While we’re still awaiting official word on just how long Paul Pogba will be out for, Juventus takes the Cotton Bowl field to continue preparations for the 2022-23 season opener that’s all of about three weeks from now.

This will be a tough test simply because it’s Barcelona and that team is a whole lot better and more skilled than the previous team Juventus played. And no matter who does play, we’re starting to get to the meat of the preseason preparations, and that’s a time in which you want to see things starting to ramp up to how they could look come the first weekend of the season.

That’s not too far off now, folks.

MATCH INFO

When: Tuesday, July 25, 2022.

Where: The Cotton Bowl Stadium, Dallas, Texas.

Official kickoff time: 7:30 p.m. local time in Dallas; 2:30 a.m. (Wednesday) in Italy and around Europe; 1:30 a.m. in the United Kingdom; 8:30 p.m. Eastern time; 5:30 p.m. Pacific time.

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-3-3): Szczesny; Danilo, Bonucci, Bremer, Alex Sandro; Zakaria, Rovella, Locatelli; Cuadrado, Kean, Di Maria.

Juventus bench: Perin, Pinsoglio, Garofani, Gatti, Pellegrini, Rugani, Barbieri, McKennie, Compagnon, Fagioli, Vlahovic, Soulé, Aké, Cudrig, Da Graca.

Barcelona starting XI (4-3-3): ter Stegen; Sergi Roberto, Christensen, Eric, Jordi Alba; Nico, Sergio Busquets, Kessie; Aubameyang, Lewandowski, Demebele.

Barcelona bench: Iñaki Peña, Dest, Pique, Memphis, Ansu Fati, Pjanic, De Jong, Raphina, Collado, Arnau Tenas, Pablo Torre, Ez Abde, Balde, Casado, Gavi.

HOW TO WATCH

Television: Fox Sports 2, Fox Sports Deportes (United States); Premier Sports 1 (United Kingdom).

Streaming: Foxsports.com, Fox Sports app, fuboTV (United States); DAZN (Canada); Premier Player HD (United Kingdom); DAZN (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.