{"id":839107,"date":"2026-09-07T04:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T04:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/839107\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T04:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T04:04:13","slug":"juventus-1-ac-milan-1-initial-reaction-and-random-observations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/839107\/","title":{"rendered":"Juventus 1 – AC Milan 1: Initial reaction and random observations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being the highly competitive person that he seems to be thanks simply to the career arc he\u2019s been on over the last decade, Federico Gatti would surely prefer to be somebody who plays more than seven or eight minutes in Juventus\u2019 first three games of the season. He may be a Juventino at heart, but he\u2019s also somebody who surely isn\u2019t content with sitting on the bench come the opening three games, only to be a Hail Mary sub in the dying minutes of the second home fixture of the season.<\/p>\n

And yet, that Hail Mary sure worked out quite well.<\/p>\n

Rather than Fred Cats sneering at the back as Juve tried to lock down a win, Luciano Spalletti threw Gatti on to be the aerial threat that his team had been virtually lacking all game long on Sunday night. How did Gatti announce his presence on the field? By doing what Striker Gatti does \u2014 scoring a late header to snatch a result, this time giving Juventus a 1-1 draw against AC Milan when it looked like they were headed toward their for loss of the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

Gatti celebrated with the curva as you would expect him to, with the steward right on the other side of the advertising board seemingly trying to not get absolutely tramped by what was happening right above and behind him.<\/p>\n

You can be happy that Juventus still have a zero in the loss column. Or you can be frustrated that it took another instance of Striker Gatti to salvage a point in a game in which Juventus were the better side for large swaths of the 90-plus minutes. Both cases can be fair \u2014 especially when you look at how little their opponent did outside of the goal they actually scored.<\/p>\n

Juve limited a Milan side that entered the Allianz Stadium on the back of their own two-game season-opening winning run feeling rather good about where things were under new manager Ruben Amorim. And yet, it was that same Milan side that finished with three shots all game, had an xG of 0.09 (!!) and all of seven touches in the opponents\u2019 penalty area.<\/p>\n

That is to say, in a shorter way, Juventus\u2019 defense got the job done outside of one very well-placed shot that gave Milan the lead with just over 20 minutes to go.<\/p>\n

So where does that leave us? Right back to a constant theme of these first three games of the new season: Juventus\u2019 inability to score consistently.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t like the first two games of the season where Juve were blowing chance after chance after chance. Their shot count wasn\u2019t pushing 30 and you were left pounding your head on the table because of just how many goals they should have as compared to how many goals they actually have. But, Juventus hit the post (again), they forced some very good saves out of Mike Maignan in the Milan goal and certainly shouldn\u2019t have been in position where they were chasing the game in the final 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

Yet they were. Because in this second game without Kenan Yildiz to lead the push forward from the left wing, this team just ain\u2019t clicking up front. And now that the schedule is very close to getting very busy, you just can\u2019t help but wonder when their misfirings in attack is actually going to truly come back to bite them and they can\u2019t overcome it with some randomness like we saw Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Or maybe you wouldn\u2019t consider Striker Gatti coming up big again.<\/p>\n

At this point, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d blame you considering that this isn\u2019t the first time he\u2019s been the leading role in that aforementioned late-game randomness. At the very least, we know that he is going to be able to put his head on the ball \u2014 which is something that we couldn\u2019t say for some of the other Juventus players on the field in the 92nd minute on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

And that hair \u2026 my word, how luscious is that man\u2019s hair looking these days? Striker Gatti forever.<\/p>\n

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS<\/p>\n

Seven points in the first three games. Four of those are thanks to goals from central defenders. Just as we all thought would be the case before the season began.The last thing Randal Kolo Muani needed was to start the season like he has.For a man who is coming off a rough season in the Premier League \u2014 and, if you followed Spurs at all, you\u2019d know not all of those struggles were exclusive to him \u2014 getting back to the place he truly wanted to be was looked as a much-needed (second) fresh start. Instead, he\u2019s now gone the first three games without scoring and the natives are already getting restless. (And not just our comment section.) This man needs a goal in the worst possible way.Juventus were the better team on Sunday. That is what I know.Guessing the general message behind this chat was \u201cGO SCORE A GOAL FOR US!\u201d At least that is what I am going to pretend it was and you can\u2019t tell me otherwise.\"TURIN,<\/a><\/p>\n

TURIN, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 6: Luciano Spalletti talks to Federico Gatti of Juventus during the Serie A match between Juventus and AC Milan at Allianz Stadium on September 6, 2026 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Daniele Badolato – Juventus FC\/Juventus FC via Getty Images) Juventus FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Amorim this. Amorim that. Did you see how little Milan actually did in the final third? As much as the attack is still a total question mark, it does appear that Juventus\u2019 two summer signings in defense \u2014 as well as Bremer being a few more months removed from his comeback \u2014 has tightened things up at the back in a big way.And yet, there\u2019s Juventus allowing a goal on the first shot on goal again. Welcome to Juventus, Vic.That\u2019s partly on Manuel Locatelli. It\u2019s partly on Pierre Kalulu. Alphadjo Ciss\u00e8 had too much room to operate, he had too much room to shoot, and in turn Kalulu\u2019s delay in getting back unintentionally created a problem for Guglielmo Vicario seeing the ball leave Ciss\u00e8\u2018s right foot. It all resulted in a 1-0 deficit.This was a mixed first start in a Juventus shirt for Kerim Alajbegovi\u0107. He started out strongly, was very involved, got a couple of pops on goal and looked pretty dang lively even if those shots were off target. But he definitely faded \u2014 especially in the second half \u2014 as the game went on. Was it conditioning? Probably. Still a decent first start, even if it was quiet last part before he was subbed off.Teun Koopmeiners with two goal involvements in his last two games. Just as we all predicted.I think it\u2019s pretty safe to say that Nico Gonz\u00e1lez was absolutely spent by the time that he was part of the double sub that brought on Koopmeiners and J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Boga in the 64th minute. That man ran his socks off and was an absolute menace for a lot of his time on the field.Man oh man, get me a front row seat on the Jhon Lucum\u00ed bandwagon. Let\u2019s drive this thing through a wall.the Lucum\u00ed-Bremer partnership is looking pretty good two games into it being a thing. More, more, more!Locatelli completed a tacco in this game. It might have been one of the slowest-developing tacco that I\u2019ve ever seen a player do. There are things Loca does well, but then there\u2019s other things where it just looks like he\u2019s going on half speed \u2014 and this was one of those instances.Juventus have now hit the post at least once in all three of their games this season. More shots on goal rather than actually on the goal, please.I\u2019ve seen some folks getting grumpy about Luciano Spalletti\u2019s subs in this game. Could he have maybe made some of them sooner? Yeah, but who else should he have brought on? His final unused outfield subs were two central defenders and two Next Gen players. With so many players out, Spalletti pretty much used every bullet that he had.So that wasn\u2019t a foul on Kolo Muani that led to Milan\u2019s goal? Do I have that right? Because it did look like a foul to me, but then again I am totally biased and don\u2019t want to see Juventus allowing dumb goals.Zeki Celik being Juventus\u2019 left back has brought just so much more calm defensively compared to the man who manned that position for much of the last few years. Juventus needed just a consistent, confident defender who won\u2019t continuously shoot his team in the foot \u2014 and that feels exactly like what Celik has done so far since moving to Turin. And at a position we weren\u2019t expecting him to play just a few weeks ago.We got to see the debut of Nick Woltemade and his mustache, too! That man is tall.Pure, genuine rima punta Woltemade is not. But he certainly showed to be a more technical player than this current version of Kolo Muani. (Which, I know, isn\u2019t saying much with how rough Kolo Muani\u2019s touches on the ball were in this game, but just trying to use a little comparison, folks.)Adrien Rabiot sending what proved to be one of Milan\u2019s four shots into the second level (slight exaggeration) of the Allianz made me laugh. That won\u2019t go on Veronique\u2019s highlight reel the next time she goes into contract negotiations with somebody.Another solid if not spectacular game for Douglas Luiz. I\u2019m good with it. He\u2019s certainly not showing us that he shouldn\u2019t be playing right now.You know who would have been nice to bring off the bench if he is in fact healthy? Arek Milik.And with that I say good evening to everybody. Have a nice weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being the highly competitive person that he seems to be thanks simply to the career arc he\u2019s been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[71086,71087,355330,403,99],"class_list":["post-839107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-post-game-threads","tag-previews-reviews","tag-serie-a-campionato-2026-27","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}