In this precise moment of Juventus’s history, the only player available to Roberto Mancini’s Italy national team is Guglielmo Vicario — the third-choice goalkeeper. Setting aside the injuries and the players needing to rediscover fitness, rarely has the Italian presence in Juventus been this reduced. The backbone that had for years made the club one of the national team’s primary talent reservoirs has been almost entirely dismantled. The data point is stark and was visible in both Serie A and the Europa League: of the nine new players brought into the first squad in the most recent transfer window by Carnevali and Massara, only two are Italian.
One is Vicario. The other is Jeff Ekhator — whom Spalletti has barely been able to use at all this season, given the young striker’s two separate muscle injuries. Encouragingly, Ekhator was spotted on the secondary pitch at the Continassa on Friday during the Cremonese friendly, working in a differentiated session that included some ball work — targeting a return between the end of October and the beginning of November.
The Strategic Ambition — Making Juventus Italian Again
Carnevali stated publicly at the Festival dello Sport in Trento that expanding the Italian contingent in the squad is a fundamental objective. The current picture — Vicario as the only fully fit Italian in the regular first-team rotation — makes the urgency of that ambition impossible to overstate. The club’s ambition, as mapped by Lanzo, is not merely to add Italian players for their own sake but to rebuild the Italian identity that historically accompanied Juventus’s greatest achievements: a squad with a national backbone capable of shaping the Italy national team rather than merely contributing a goalkeeper to it.
Palmisani — the January Formula
The Frosinone goalkeeper who made his Serie A debut against Juventus on the opening day and has impressed throughout remains the most advanced Italian target. The Gatti formula — buy the contract in January, leave him on loan at Frosinone until June — is the model being applied. Carnevali confirmed at Trento that Palmisani is important and Italian, but that no formal approach has yet been made. The January window is the timeline. Frosinone’s contract renewal to 2031 is noted but not considered an obstacle given the strong institutional relationship between the two clubs.
Romano — the Cagliari Sensation and Why the Massara Connection Matters
Alessandro Romano — the born-2006 midfielder already called up by Mancini’s Italy after a stunning opening to the season at Cagliari — is the second Italian name on the most active monitoring list. The agent connection that runs between Romano’s representation and Massara’s network gives Juventus a structural advantage over Inter and the Premier League clubs also following his progress. The January approach, in the Palmisani style, is being actively evaluated — with the Çalhanoğlu sequencing complication already identified as the variable that could reshape the timeline.
Kayode — the Story Revisited
The paywalled second chapter — “Kayode e il passato Juve” — revisits the story of the Italy international wide forward who passed through the Juventus academy as a child before being released. His development at Fiorentina and subsequent transfer to Arsenal demonstrated what the club let go — and Marchisio’s comment that “maybe Kayode will return to Juventus as a star one day” is the external endorsement of a possibility that Lanzo confirms Carnevali is keeping in the back of his mind. The specific details of any formal interest remain undisclosed.
The Full List of Italian Targets
The third chapter — “Juve, gli altri nomi nel mirino” — completes the picture with every Italian talent the club is actively monitoring: Ndour at Fiorentina, Mane at Dortmund, and Filippo Mane as the young Italy international defender who combines Italian eligibility with a Dortmund contract that will need renewal decisions in the near future. The project for a more Italian Juventus is not a nostalgic exercise in national identity — it is a deliberate sporting strategy, a UEFA compliance mechanism, and a commercial ambition all simultaneously. Carnevali has articulated it clearly. The next window will begin to deliver it.
