Juventus and AC Milan are set meet in the second Supercoppa Italiana semi-final on Friday in Riyadh. The Coppa Italia holders will be up against last season Serie A second-placed team and new Milan boss Sergio Conceicao will be out to beat his son.
Once more, four teams are going to compete in the Supercup Italiana mini tournament, and the first trophy of 2025 will be played for - Juventus and Milan are going directly into new format.
Juventus has won nine titles and lost eight finals overall, and they secured their place in this year’s competition by winning the Coppa Italia.
Now, they will look to secure a meeting with either their opponents in the Coppa final in the last term, Atalanta BC, or Scudetto winners Inter Milan in Monday’s.
Facing Milan in the league this month, Thiago Motta’s team has not had the best of the Serie A season so far. Even a 2-2 home draw against the Viola and Khephren Thuram’s goals last week meant that Atalanta had gone 18 Serie A matches without a loss but was five points off the top four in Italy.
When Motta assumed the mantle of leadership from Max Allegri in the summer, Juventus strengthened that aging team with some costly additions but the team’s performance remains unchanged.
The Bianconeri hosted 21 top-flight games this beginning – just one less than the all-time Serie A record held by Perugia – and they may fail to reclaim a place in the Champions League.
As Juve stand well-equipped to advance to the knockout stage of UEFA’s premier competition and, at that, dominate a place in the Coppa Italia quarter-final, Motta will know that earning one trophy is the very least expected of him.
Paulo Fonseca joined Milan concurrently with Motta's transfer to Turin and had comparable success, but the Rossoneri's resentful owners have now fired him.
Fonseca ended up being the fall person after RedBird Capital, an American investment business led by Gerry Cardinale and advised by playing icon Zlatan Ibrahimovic, was overrun by fan demonstrations in recent weeks.
With one game remaining and Milan in eighth place in Serie A, five points behind Juventus, he was replaced by fellow Portuguese coach Sergio Conceicao, whose prosperous tenure at Porto ended in controversy.
Conceicao, a former Inter player, takes over a team that is 14 points behind league leaders Atalanta BC and 13 points behind the Nerazzurri. They have a lot of work ahead of them if they are to salvage European qualification from a poor season.
Dutch midfielder Tijjani Reijnders has been outstanding during a lackluster domestic campaign, contributing to 11 goals thus far. In the Rossoneri's last game before Christmas, his goal secured a 1-1 draw with Roma.
Milan's trip to Saudi Arabia gives Conceicao an instant opportunity to gain recognition by winning the Supercoppa Italiana, which the second-city team has won seven times before returning to Serie A.
