Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Torino

Friday was quite the eventful day for Juventus and not much of it had to do with anything taking part on the field. It started with one of the club’s most talented players, Paul Pogba, seeing his failed doping test confirmed as he stares down a lengthy suspension and likely contract termination. That was followed up by Max Allegri saying at his pre-match press conference what we had feared for the last 24 hours or so — Juve are going to be without both of their top two strikers in the first Derby dell Mole of the season.

To cap it all off, the club announced another nine figures worth of losses with another capital increase expected to happen after Juve’s financial losses for the last three years went surging past the half a billion euro mark.

So let’s see what this next day has in store, shall we?

There’s no Dusan Vlahovic. There’s no Federico Chiesa. There’s no Paul Pogba. There’s no Alex freakin’ Sando. OK, so that last one isn’t as big of a deal as the first three as Juventus gets set to take on cross-town rival Torino in tonight’s Derby della Mole a the Allianz Stadium tonight. The Turin derby is always an interesting and tricky encounter to predict despite the fact that Juve have beaten Torino much more often than they’ve lost to their little brother. But with a shorthanded lineup and one that could be a little bit on the makeshift side in attack, it’s hard to truly know what to expect from Allegri.

Which, based on the last few weeks where grinding out results has resulted, might not exactly be the most welcomed sight by a good number of folks around here and the Juventus fanbase in general.

Let’s see if Juve can put forth a performance that is a lot better than what we saw against Atalanta last weekend or Lecce before that. The last few games have not been all that great by any means, and the last thing we need is for Juve to go into the second international break of the season on another down note to stew on for two weeks.

So, please, Juventus, don’t make us grumpy. The last 24 or so hours have been emotional enough and there’s only so much of that kind of bandwidth that can go around.

MATCH INFO

When: Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.

Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 6 p.m. Italy and the Central European time zone, 5 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 12 p.m. Eastern time, 9 a.m. Pacific time.

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (3-5-1-1): Szczesny; Gatti, Bremer, Danilo; Weah, McKennie, Locatelli, Rabiot, Kostic; Miretti; Kean.

Juventus bench: Pinsoglio, Perin, Huijsen, Rugani, Cambiaso, Fagioli, Nicolussi Caviglia, Milik, Yildiz, Iling-Junior.

Torino starting XI (3-5-2): Savic; Tameze, Schuurs, Rodriguez; Bellanova, Ricci, Ilic, Lazaro; Vlasic, Seck; Duvan Zapata.

HOW TO WATCH

Television: TNT Sports 2 (United Kingdom).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo, Fox Soccer Plus (United States); fuboTV Canada (Canada); discovery+, discovery+ app (United Kingdom); DAZN, Sky Go Italia (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.