The blanket at the Continassa has rarely been thinner. Between the season’s extraordinary injury toll and the imminent wave of international departures, Luciano Spalletti faces the most stripped-back fortnight of his Juventus tenure. When the twelve internationals leave on Monday, the manager will have just seven outfield players available for work — eight if Milik is included, though the Polish striker remains outside both the Serie A and Europa League squad lists and can only participate in Coppa Italia matches.
Who Leaves — and Who Stays
The twelve players departing for international duty cover an extraordinary range of national teams: Grabara, Çelik, Koopmeiners, Kalulu, Woltemade, Zhegrova, Lucumí, Alajbegovic, González, Conceição, Sarr, and Douglas Luiz. Behind them, the outfield players remaining at the Continassa are: Bremer, Kelly, Gatti, Rugani, McKennie, Kolo Muani — and, for the first time since the Parma match in matchday two, Cambiaso.
Cambiaso: The Return That Changes Everything
The Italian full-back has definitively put the ankle sprain that has kept him sidelined since 23 August behind him. From Monday, he will return to full group training — having completed his most recent session only partially with the group. His return is operationally significant on two levels. First, it removes the tactical strain that has seen Çelik deployed far outside his natural position on the left flank for seven consecutive competitive matches. Second, it gives Spalletti the international break as a genuine integration window — two weeks during which Cambiaso can rebuild his sharpness, understand the tactical system fully in both the 4-2-3-1 and 3-4-2-1, and prepare for a return to competitive action against Cagliari on 11 October.
Spalletti’s Experiments — Cambiaso as a Right Mezzala?
The most intriguing dimension of the international break for those following Juventus closely is what Spalletti intends to do with the players who remain. The article reveals that the manager is unlikely to use this fortnight merely as a fitness maintenance exercise. He has something more specific in mind: experimenting with Cambiaso in a different position — specifically as a right mezzala in a hypothetical 4-3-3, flanked by McKennie and Douglas Luiz as his midfield partners.
The idea is not as counterintuitive as it might appear. Cambiaso’s technical profile — his comfort in tight spaces, his capacity to read the game from a central position, his attacking contribution from deep — has occasionally led both Spalletti and observers to wonder whether his ceiling is not higher in a more interior role than the full-back position that has defined his career. The international break provides the safest possible environment in which to explore the question without any competitive risk.
A Friendly Scheduled — Woltemade and Conceição to Return Early
The skeleton squad will also play a friendly during the break — the specific date and opponent not yet confirmed in the paywalled sections, but the existence of the fixture confirmed in the article’s headlines. The friendly serves two purposes: maintaining competitive rhythm for those who remain, and providing Spalletti with an opportunity to observe his experimental configurations against real opponents rather than in internal training sessions.
One further operational note from the chapter headings: Douglas Luiz’s Brazil call-up under Carlo Ancelotti — the manager who has now confirmed the Brazilian’s international rehabilitation alongside his club form renaissance — is described with the headline “Douglas Luiz, chissà che Ancelotti…” — an open question about what the national team experience might add to a player already transformed beyond recognition from the one who arrived at Juventus fourteen months ago. And a third chapter heading — “Il tour de force” — maps the demanding fixture schedule that awaits upon the squad’s return: Cagliari away on 11 October, Celta Vigo away in the Europa League on 15 October, and then a sequence that will demand the full depth of every available resource before the season finds its rhythm.
