JUVENTUS HAVE LEFT Emre Can and Mario Mandzukic out of their Champions League squad.
Midfielder Can, who joined from Liverpool on a free transfer in 2018, has been overlooked in favour of Sami Khedira, Blaise Matuidi, Miralem Pjanic and new signings Aaron Ramsey and Adrien Rabiot.
Mandzukic, who scored in the Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid in 2017, misses out in favour of Gonzalo Higuain, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paulo Dybala, Juan Cuadrado and Federico Bernardeschi in attack.
Experienced defender Giorgio Chiellini has also been left out as he is expected to be sidelined for approximately six months following surgery on a damaged anterior cruciate ligament.
Head coach Maurizio Sarri expressed concern last month that he would be forced to omit senior players from the 22-man list for the group stage given the size of his squad.
He branded the club’s transfer policy “embarrassing” as Juve struggled to offload stars to accommodate the arrivals of several new players, including Rabiot, Ramsey, Matthijs de Ligt, Danilo, Luca Pellegrini, Merih Demiral and Gianluigi Buffon.
“We have to cut six players from the Champions League squad,” he said. ”If we don’t, the choices we have are crazy.
“The last 20 days of the [transfer] market will be difficult for us. It’s a difficult, embarrassing situation, because we risk leaving top players out of the squad list.
“It’s a situation we have to resolve, and it’s not strictly connected to the choices of the coach or club.”
Juve are in Group D of the Champions League alongside Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen and Lokomotiv Moscow.
They begin their campaign against Atletico at the Wanda Metropolitano on 18 September.
- Omni
Interesting. On the one hand Sarri is right he does have too big a squad but on the other is he not putting too much pressure on himself by admitting what a strong, large squad he has.. the general feeling is Juve need to win a champions league in the next year or two after the investment they’ve made, and oddly enough Sarri might just be the guy to do it. Granted we didn’t see the best of him at Chelsea but he still won silverware and might have serie A down to a tee. Especially given the gulf in quality between his Juve team and his old Napoli squad
Sarri has a serious amount of talent in that squad. I’m not so sure that Spain’s big two are good enough to win it this year, PSG will be no better than last year, so I make city slight favourites to win the Champions league, with Juve maybe just ahead of Liverpool, thou I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the scousers make it three finals in a row.
@Devilsavocado:
You’d have to fancy City and Liverpool for definite semis and Juve should be there about’s to. What about Athletico, they could be a good bet to win it.
@Nollaig Elliot:
Atletico*
@Nollaig Elliot: Atletico have a decent side and could do well, I hope not thou,,, I can’t stand Diego Simeone, every time I see him running up and down the line waving the imagery card and screaming at a referee makes me hope they end up getting hammered. I’d say he will be a premiership manager in a few years time, not looking forward to that at all….
Emre Can’t!
I though Amir Can was a boxer
@Fr. Barty Dunne: That’s a shocking effort lad. Morto.
I’m guessing the 22 man list me tío Ed is actually the 25 man list minus the two obligatory keepers and minus another one for not having 8 home grown players on the list
@Dave O Keeffe: mentioned