Juventus-Atletico Madrid friendly first canceled, then moved to Continassa

Saturday was meant to be one final travel day for Juventus before the 2022 Serie A season got underway. Juventus and Atletico Madrid, much like a couple of Serie A and La Liga clubs before them this summer, were set to wrap up their respective preseason preparations with a friendly in Tel Aviv on Sunday night.

But new tensions in the Middle East has changed all of that.

It was originally announced that the friendly between the two Champions League sides was canceled outright due to the latest safety concerns to come out of recent bombings in Gaza. However, just a few hours later, the friendly between Juve and Atleti was back on, but nowhere near where it was supposed to originally be played. Instead of traveling nearly a few thousand miles, Juventus players and coaches will only to get in their cars and drive a couple of miles, with the friendly moved to Juventus Training Center at Continassa.

The game, scheduled for 18:00 CET (12 p.m. Eastern/9 a.m. Pacific), will be played behind closed doors at Continassa.

Here is the original press release stating why the friendly was canceled:

Due to the security situation, the friendly match between Atlético Madrid and Juventus due to take place in Israel has been cancelled

In light of the current security situation, Comtec Group has annonced that the match between Atlético Madrid and Juventus that was supposed to take place this coming Sunday (August 7) ​​at the Bloomfield Stadium will not take place as planned.

But now, with the game moved to Turin, Juventus gets one last chance to evaluate things before the season gets underway for real against Sassuolo on Monday, Aug. 15, at Allianz Stadium.

And I guess we’ve got a little more to do on a Sunday again just a couple of hours after we thought we had a nice relaxing day in store with no Juventus. Oh well, so comes the dangers of scheduling a friendly a week before the season starts in a place where there’s unending political unrest.