Juventus Nears All-Foreign XI Against Sassuolo Due to Injuries

One of the early subplots of the 2026-27 Serie A season has nothing to do with tactics or title races. It’s about passports.

Across the opening three matchdays, several of Italy’s heavyweights have lined up with barely an Italian in sight. Como, the league’s billionaire-backed fairy tale, has already started multiple games without a single Italian on the pitch from the first whistle.

Juventus are about to edge uncomfortably close to that territory.

On Sunday night at the Mapei Stadium against Sassuolo, Luciano Spalletti is expected to send out a starting XI with just one Italian: Guglielmo Vicario. The goalkeeper, barely settled into life in Turin, suddenly finds himself as the lone standard-bearer of the club’s national identity.

The reason is brutal and simple: injuries.

Manuel Locatelli, the heartbeat in midfield and one of only two Italians to have started all three league games so far, is out until 2027 after undergoing surgery to repair his meniscus. Andrea Cambiaso has been missing since the opening game of the season. Jeff Ekhator, one of the brighter young Italian striking prospects in the squad, has been sidelined for most of preseason and won’t return for a couple of months.

At the back, Federico Gatti’s situation underlines the shift. Even after his late-game heroics against AC Milan last weekend, he remains behind Gleison Bremer and Jhon Lucumí in the pecking order. He’s expected to start on the bench again, his role reduced to impact substitute rather than defensive pillar.

Zeki Çelik has locked down the left-back spot in Cambiaso’s absence, starting all three league games so far. With each team sheet, the Italian presence has thinned out a little more.

Now it may be stripped back to just Vicario.

If Spalletti’s selection follows the expected pattern, it will be the first time since February 2023 that Juventus start a match with only one Italian on the pitch. For a club that has long been intertwined with the identity of the national team, that statistic lands with a jolt.

And there’s another twist. The only Italian likely to start on Sunday is a summer arrival. Vicario wasn’t even a Juventus player a couple of months ago. He looks and sounds every bit the Juventino, and he clearly understands what it means to be both Italian and the No. 1 for this club, but he is barely 270 minutes into his Juve career.

For now, that’s all the Italian flag in the starting XI has to cling to.