Juventus vs. PSV Eindhoven match preview: Time, TV schedule ...

For nearly two years, big Champions League nights have been absent from the Juventus Stadium. The reasons for that are not exactly a secret — be it because of Juve simply failing to get out of the group stage or a points penalty shunting any sort of qualification later on in the 2022-23 season. With no Europe at all last season, midweek fixtures were simply relegated to the handful of times Serie A did that or the run to winning the Coppa Italia.

The goal of the 2023-24 campaign was clear: get back to the Champions League.

That was done, and now Juventus get to test their mettle against the best Europe has to offer once again while also reaping the rewards of it financially as they hopefully start to cut down on the nine-figure losses they’ve had for pretty much all of this decade to date.

Juventus’ first Champions League fixture — albeit in the new-look league phase and not the group stage that we had become so accustomed to over the years — since Nov. 2, 2022, sees Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven roll into Turin for another one of those big steps up compared to what Thiago Motta’s squad has seen for much of the new Serie A season. And just a big step up, but it’s a PSV squad that has started the 2024-25 campaign in fine form, essentially picking up where they left off last season as they stormed to the top of the Eredivisie table.

For a team that finished with a goal differential of plus-90 (!!!), they’re well on their way to potentially recording that kind of same figure once again. Through their first five games this season, PSV and manager Peter Bosz have won them all and outscored their opposition 20-3 in the process, including a 2-0 win over NEC Nijmegen at the same time that Juve were struggling to score against Empoli on Saturday.

So is it safe to say that PSV — albeit a team that is going to be shorthanded when they step onto the field in Turin — may very well provide the toughest test to a Juventus defense that has recorded four straight shutouts to open the season?

I wouldn’t disagree with you if you thought just that. And it’s quite the opposite kind of situation in which Juventus’ new-look and still-gelling attack enters Tuesday night’s Champions League opener in.

The last 180 minutes of Juventus football have not been very good. It’s been disjointed, sloppy and, most importantly, very much scoreless with points being dropped against Roma and then Empoli on each side of the September international break. This isn’t exactly the most surprising development there is considering just how many new players that Motta is trying to work in at a time in which his team is also trying to pick up points against provincial clubs and starting the return to European competition.

But it’s hard to ignore the ineffectiveness in front of goal that we’ve seen the last two games out. It hasn’t been just Dusan Vlahovic, either. It’s been a collective effort — if you want to call it that — that has led to Juventus putting all of four shots on frame over the last two games.

Motta said following Saturday’s scoreless draw with Empoli that, on top of it “not the result we wanted,” his team is very much struggling to create chances and also score the few opportunities they do have. Some of that is the fact that this team has so many new components and they haven’t developed much of a familiarity with one another yet, but it’s also just that those players are also not playing up to the level that they were at last season.

That will, hopefully, come with time, of course. But, at the same time, the immediate future sees a team that clearly hasn’t had any problems at all scoring goals the last couple of years lining up against them Tuesday night.

That means Juventus enter their first Champions League game in nearly 700 days very much a work in progress. That’s not necessarily what you want when you’re facing a good team like PSV very much is, But that’s just the reality of what Motta and Juventus are currently dealing with.

They wanted the roster overhaul. They very much executed most of it. But there’s also things that come with so many changes — and trying to get everything to mesh is very much one of them. Now we get to see where they’re at in their developmental stage against a very good team in PSV.

At the very least we know it comes in the Champions League — which is something we haven’t been able to say for a little while. So, there’s that, which seems nice.

TEAM NEWS This will be the first game that Motta has managed in the Champions League. He made 82 appearances as a player in the Champions League. It will also be the first time that 10 players on the Juventus roster will be playing in the Champions League, a list that includes Michele Di Gregorio, Douglas Luiz, Andrea Cambiaso, Nico Gonzalez and Kenan Yildiz. The two injured players who were out against Empoli are still out when PSV come to Turin, with Arek Milik and Francisco Conceição still a couple of weeks away from returning to action. Motta said that Juventus captain Danilo, who has barely played this season “is fit” — which, as we’re starting to suspect, his lack of playing time is now more tactical than health-related. In the wake of criticism following Juventus’ scoreless draw with Empoli, Motta said that Dusan Vlahovic “is fine” and “will continue to score goals.” Motta admitted that criticism will only be natural for a high-profile like Vlahovic, but “counts is his attitude” when it comes to how the 24-year-old Serbian striker handles it all. Motta has stated that, for the record, he is a fan of the new Champions League format. When asked who the favorite to win the Champions League is this season, Motta said the following: “I have no idea.” JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH

The new Dutch guy facing a Dutch team for the first time since signing with Juventus?

Well, yeah. Let’s just go ahead and follow that storyline right there.

Photo by Daniele Badolato - Juventus FC/Juventus FC via Getty Images

Teun Koopmeiners got his first Juventus appearance out of the way before the international break. He got his first Juventus start out of the way this past weekend coming out of the international break. And now, well, it’s just a waiting game to see when Koopmeiners will be the same version of Koopmeiners that was one of the best players in Serie A last season.

Like so many players, it’s going to take time. I don’t know how many folks — yes, even in the year 2024 where instant gratification in sport is demanded by so many — expected Koopmeiners to come into a new team and essentially pick up where he left off with Atalanta. That’s especially true when you consider what his last few weeks in Bergamo were like as he tried to force through his move to Juventus that he eventually got a couple of days before the transfer window ended.

But now, with a second game of experience with Juventus under his belt, the hope is that a little more comfortability will come his way. And maybe, just maybe, facing a club that he’s already quite familiar with from his earlier days as a senior level player can help out a little bit and kickstart things into gear.

On the whole, though, the biggest thing for Koopmeiners — as with just about every new Juventus player that arrived during the summer — is to just try and build chemistry and rapport with his teammates as fast as possible so that the system can work. You could see during the proceedings against Empoli that there just wasn’t much rhythm in the final third, with multiple players running into the same spaces and things just looking out of sync.

Just a couple of more days following the draw with Empoli won’t be the magic snap of the fingers of sorts, but the more game experience at Juventus that Koopmeiners gets, the more you hope he can show what he’s all about.

And what better way to start showing that than against a team from his homeland, right?

MATCH INFO

When: Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024.

Where: Juventus Stadium, Turin, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 6:45 p.m. in Italy and the Central European time zone, 5:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 12:45 p.m. Eastern time, 9:45 a.m. Pacific time.

Television: TUDN USA, UniMás (United States); TNT Sports 2 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 252, Sky Sport 4K (Italy).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+, fuboTV, TUDN.com, TUDN App, Univision NOW (United States); DAZN Canada (Canada); Amazon Prime Video (United Kingdom); Sky Go Italia, NOW TV (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.