On Saturday Juventus will host Genoa at the Allianz Stadium in Turin in what will be the debut of new manager Igor Tudor at the club after the Bianconeri sacked former coach Thiago Motta during the international break. Tudor, who was a defender at the club during his playing days, will be back on the Serie A bench one year after leading Lazio head coach at the end of the 2023-24 season. Tudor replaced Maurizio Sarri on the Biancocelesti, bench during the season, but then later decided with Lazio to part ways at the end of the season. The Croatian manager was called by Juventus sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli to lead the team into the top four and qualify for the next UEFA Champions League and Tudor will manage the Italian giants at least until the end of the current spell which also includes the FIFA Club World Cup that will take place this summer in the United States.
Tudor was unveiled on Thursday ahead of his Serie A debut which will air CBS during a press conference, where he showed his passion for the club: “I consider myself a coach. I started coaching quite early on in my career because of injuries. I’ve already been abroad for several years. I can be a bit particular, but I make choices with my heart. I come, contract or no contract. If I feel it’s right, I continue, if it’s not right, I go home. But that has nothing to do with the situation here.”
“We live in the present, even in this line of work. Having a ten-year contract wouldn’t change much. I wish I had a ten-year contract, but I still have to do my job. We have a match on Saturday, we’re motivating ourselves, that is the life of a coach. We can’t control what happens in the future. I live for today’s training.”
Here’s what you need to know ahead of Saturday’s fixture:
How to watch and odds
- Date: Saturday, Mar. 29 | Time: 1 p.m. ET
- Location: Allianz Stadium — Turin, Italy
- TV: CBS
- Odds: Juventus -180; Draw +280; Genoa +550
Tudor’s history at Juventus
The Croatian manager had a big history at Juventus as a player. Tudor played a total 174 games at the club and scored 21 goals as a defender. At Juve, he won two Serie A titles (2001-02, 2002-03), two Supercups (2002, 2003) and one UEFA Intertoto trophy in 1999. He also won the Serie B title with the Juventus as he was on the roster when the Bianconeri were relegated to the Italian second division in 2006 after the Calciopoli scandal. However, he never played that year after suffering an injury during the pre-season, but the club decided to keep him under manager Didier Deschamps as he decided together with Juventus to reduce his salary until the end of that campaign. In the summer of 2007 Tudor left the club where he played for almost a decade and he then made his comeback as assistant manager of Andrea Pirlo during the 2020-21 season when they won the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana.
His managerial record
As Tudor himself admitted during the press conference ahead of the Genoa game, he started early to be a manager due to injuries that forced him to retire at 30 years old after playing one last season at Hajduk Split. He started to coach the academies of the same Croatian side until he was promoted to the first team where he won the Croatian Cup in 2013. After that, he managed at Karabükspor, PAOK, Galatasaray, Udinese and again at Hajduk before his Juventus spell as assistant manager. He then became first team manager for a year at Hellas Verona, before his Olympique Marseille spell and lastly at Lazio last year when he arrived to replace Maurizio Sarri at the end of the 2023-24 season.
Style of play
As a manager, over the years, Tudor has always showed aggressive pressing football, with an intense and disciplinary approach on both phases, when the team attack and mostly when they defend. He usually play with a three-man defense with a 3-4-1-2 or occasionally with a 3-5-2 formation. His teams usually prioritised direct transitions instead of keeping more the ball with a slow-possession approach. He also likes to have his teams playing attacking football, as he said during a press conference when he was at Lazio: “I prefer to win, I have to decide, 4-3 instead of 1-0.”
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