Juventus vs Inter: Spalletti's Challenge for Growth

Luciano Spalletti did not bother with diplomacy. On the eve of a pre-season Derby d’Italia in Perth, the Juventus coach looked straight at the reality of Serie A and called it as he sees it.

Inter, he said, are still the benchmark.

“These are the sorts of games that help you understand a lot about the mentality of the team and whether or not we're working in the right direction,” Spalletti told reporters on Friday. Inter, in his eyes, remain “a very strong team like Chelsea,” and Juventus will need to be “a team in every moment of the game” to avoid being picked apart.

For a friendly on the other side of the world, the stakes sound strangely serious. That’s because, for Spalletti, this is not just a commercial tour date. It’s a measuring stick.

Inter as the standard, Juve as the learners

The message was clear: Juventus are chasing, not leading.

“We just want to play a good game against the strongest side in our league and learn as many things as possible to get to their level,” he said, framing the Derby d’Italia not as a grudge match, but as a lesson.

The choice of words matters. Juventus, historically the dominant force, are being cast as students. Inter are the model to study.

To bridge that gap, Spalletti wants intensity, compactness, and a collective identity. “Inter will find advantages if we're not compact,” he warned. Any lapse, any moment where Juventus are not functioning as a unit, and Simone Inzaghi’s side will punish them. Even in August. Even in Perth.

Yildiz under the spotlight

One of the main focuses of this tour, and of the season ahead, is Kenan Yildiz. The young attacker has become a symbol of Juventus’ new direction: younger, more dynamic, built less around a single star and more around shared responsibility.

Spalletti confirmed that Yildiz will see more of the pitch against Inter than he did in the recent friendly against Chelsea in Hong Kong.

“He will play more than he did in the game against Chelsea,” the coach said, while explaining that three or four players were held back in training to manage fatigue and workload. The schedule, the travel, the commercial demands – all of it weighs on preparation.

“It's not easy to organise these sorts of events. They take extra effort and we'll have to discuss it over the next few days to see how we've recovered,” Spalletti admitted.

On Yildiz’s role when the real stuff begins, he kept the door open but refused to promise anything. “I will see after the game tomorrow whether he will be a starter (in the league), but I think I will let him play for a half, or almost a half.”

Half a game against Inter. Enough time for Spalletti to judge whether the youngster is ready to carry more of the load when the season kicks off.

Circati talk cooled by a crowded squad

The summer market inevitably came up, and with it the name Alessandro Circati. The Parma centre-back has been linked with Juventus, but Spalletti moved quickly to cool expectations.

“He's a promising young player who has shown a lot of great qualities and he could also be of interest to any club,” he acknowledged. Then came the reality check.

“But right now, we only have a couple of strong routes in our sights and those do not concern him. We can't create alternative situations at the moment because we have a very large squad.”

It was a pointed reminder that Juventus’ problem is not a lack of options, but the opposite. Spalletti must first shape, slim, and organise what he already has before adding another piece.

No 20-goal guarantee? Spalletti backs the collective

Up front, the picture has changed dramatically. Dusan Vlahovic is gone. In his place, Juventus have brought in Randal Kolo Muani and Jeff Ekhator, with Kerim Alajbegovic also added to the attacking mix.

The obvious question followed: does this squad lack a forward who can guarantee 20 goals a season?

Spalletti pushed back against the obsession with a single talisman.

“I think we've signed players who collectively will be able to exceed those numbers,” he said. “It's not important to have somebody who scores 20 goals.”

This is not just a tactical view; it’s a response to the calendar. “This year, the season will be characterised by the fact that it will be played on Thursdays and Sundays, it will be difficult to always play with the same players,” he explained.

The Europa League looms large. “The Europa League engages you even more than the Champions League,” Spalletti claimed, underlining the physical and mental toll of a competition that often stretches squads to their limit.

Without a classic, dominant No. 9, he will lean on variety and flexibility.

“Even without a physical centre-forward, we have Ekhator who has a few of those characteristics, Kolo Muani commands the area,” he said. “It's a bit of an open situation, but with the players we have available, with what we've done on the market, we'll be able to make up for it through everyone's collective work.”

Alajbegovic, he added, “is somebody who can score goals. We want to help Kolo Muani's numbers. We're quite calm for the moment.”

Calm, but not complacent. The message is that Juventus will attack by committee. The days of waiting for one man to rescue them may be over.

Bastoni, old wounds and a deliberate silence

No Derby d’Italia is ever just about tactics and transfers. The last meeting between these two clubs left a bitter taste, wrapped around Alessandro Bastoni’s involvement in Pierre Kalulu’s wrongful sending off and the defender’s infamous celebration.

Asked whether any resentment remains towards Bastoni, Spalletti chose a different form of pressure: indifference.

“It will be simple, we will continue to do what we did after that game,” he said. “We didn't create any big aftermath, we didn't talk about the players' behaviour on the pitch.”

No escalation. No war of words. Just a pointed decision to ignore the noise and focus on the pitch.

“We just want to play a good game against the strongest side in our league and learn as many things as possible to get to their level,” he repeated, circling back to the theme that ran through the entire press conference.

In Perth, under unfamiliar skies and far from Turin or Milan, Juventus will look straight at the team their own coach still calls the strongest in Italy. The result will be forgotten quickly. What Spalletti learns about his players, and how close they are to that standard, will not.