Reports: Juventus set to fire Thiago Motta; Igor Tudor the likely short-term replacement

03/22/2025 07:08 PM

The wheels are certainly being put in motion.

It appears we could very well be on the cusp of a weekend of major change at Juventus.

That is a result of Saturday night's news drop from multiple outlets within the Italia media contingent that reported it's only a matter of time before Thiago Motta is officially dismissed as manager at Juventus. No "Let's see what the result against Genoa is" or anything like that. It now appears that all signs point toward Juve dismissing Motta just 10 months after hiring him, with his last two games before the international break coming in losses to Atalanta and Fiorentina by a combined score of 7-0.

The man who is the leader in the clubhouse to replace Motta on a short-term caretaker basis through the rest of the 2024-25 season is Igor Tudor, who has accepted the terms of joining Juventus in this kind of role, according to Fabrizio Romano and Sky Italia's Gianluca Di Marzio. Tudor will also reportedly have an option in his contract to stay on for the 2025-26 season, although the conditions of that are still unknown.

Romeo Agresti reported earlier in the day Saturday that things were looking bleak for Motta and his future at Juventus, saying that evaluations were underway and his fate seemed sealed — a change was going to happen and rather quickly.

Parting ways with Motta now will not come cheap for a Juventus squad that is very much in need of making the Champions League next season simply from a financial standpoint. According to Corriere dello Sport, it will cost Juventus in the neighborhood of €15 million to part ways with Motta and his coaching staff. Motta, who signed a three-year contract with Juventus, reportedly earns €5 million per season.

But over the last 24 hours, things have certainly accelerated from "meetings are happening and evaluations are continuing" to basically where we are now, with Motta's tenure at Juventus very much looking over and somebody like Tudor set to be the man to try and get this club qualified for the Champions League during the final nine games of the season. In a way, once you saw Cristiano Giuntoli coming out and trying to give public back to an under-fire Motta, that probably was a good sign that things were starting to turn behind the scenes.

Or maybe the fact that the team didn't have any sort of training sessions this weekend.

Either way, Motta's firing feels rather imminent as the players out on international duty will start to work their way back to Turin in the next couple of days. At this point, they will likely be meeting a new manager who knows a thing or two about Juventus and how things were during much, much better times.