Juventus Faces All-Foreign XI Against Sassuolo Amid Injury Crisis

One of the strangest subplots of the opening weeks of the 2026-27 Serie A season hasn’t been a tactical revolution or a breakout star. It’s been the absence of Italians in the starting lineups of some of the league’s biggest clubs.

Como, the billionaire-backed fairy tale, has led the way, sending out XIs without a single Italian on multiple occasions. Now Juventus, the club that once formed the spine of the national team almost by default, are about to brush uncomfortably close to that line.

On Sunday night at the Mapei Stadium, Luciano Spalletti is expected to name a Juventus side with just one Italian on the pitch from the first whistle.

Vicario alone with the flag

Barring a late twist from Spalletti, Guglielmo Vicario will be the lone Italian in Juve’s starting XI against Sassuolo. The goalkeeper, three games into his Bianconeri career, suddenly finds himself as the only homegrown presence in a team that once overflowed with Azzurri internationals.

This isn’t a grand ideological shift from Juventus. It’s an injury storm.

Manuel Locatelli, the heartbeat of the midfield and one of only two Italians to start all three league games so far, has been ruled out until 2027 after undergoing meniscus surgery. Andrea Cambiaso, the energetic full-back who opened the campaign as a starter, has been sidelined since the first matchday. Up front, highly rated young striker Jeff Ekhator has barely been seen since preseason and is not expected back for a couple of months.

The domino effect is brutal. With Zeki Çelik locking down the left-back spot in Cambiaso’s absence and the centre-back pairing of Gleison Bremer and Jhon Lucumí firmly established, Federico Gatti has been reduced to a role off the bench, even after his late heroics against AC Milan last weekend.

Unless Spalletti rips up his plan and rewards Gatti with a surprise start, Vicario will be carrying the tricolore on his own.

A rare sight for Juventus

If that scenario plays out, it will be the first time since February 2023 that Juventus have started a match with just one Italian on the team sheet. For any other club, that might be a quirky stat. For Juventus, it feels like a jolt.

This is the club that has long seen itself as an extension of the national side, the institution that supplied goalkeepers, defenders, midfield generals and captains to Italy for generations. Now, in one of the early fixtures of a new season, the only Italian in the XI could be a goalkeeper who wasn’t even a Juventus player a couple of months ago.

Vicario has embraced the club quickly. He looks and sounds every bit the Juventino, fully aware of what it means to wear the shirt and what it represents in Italian football. But he is still only about 270 competitive minutes into his Juventus career.

For the moment, though, that is enough to make him the last Italian standing in black and white from the first whistle.