Juventus appoint Luciano Spalletti as new manager

Juventus have appointed Luciano Spalletti as their new head coach.

The Italian has signed an eight-month deal until the end of the season with an option to extend conditional on qualification for the Champions League.

Spalletti takes over after Igor Tudor was sacked on Monday amid an eight-game winless streak. Tudor’s last match was a 1-0 loss to Lazio on Sunday, left the side eighth in Serie A and nine points off league leaders Napoli.

Caretaker coach Massimo Brambilla oversaw a 3-1 victory at home to Udinese on Wednesday, a result which took the side into seventh.

The preceding loss to Lazio followed a 2-0 defeat in the league against Como and a 1-0 loss to Real Madrid in the Champions League, having followed up three wins at the start of the season with a run of five straight draws.

Spalletti had been out of work after being sacked as Italy head coach in June following a 3-0 defeat to Norway in World Cup qualifying. He had previously overseen the team’s exit in the round-of-16 at Euro 2024.

“Juventus are a great club with a great history,” he said on Tuesday, per La Gazzetta dello Sport. “Everyone would gladly coach Juventus.”

The 66-year-old is experienced in Serie A, having had two spells in charge of both Udinese and Roma, and has also coached Napoli, Inter Milan, Ancona, Venezia, Sampdoria and Empoli in a managerial career spanning more than three decades.

He led Napoli to the Scudetto in 2022-23, and also won the Russian top-flight twice while in charge of Zenit Saint Petersburg from 2014 to 2019 – his only spell outside of his homeland.

The Turin-based club finished fourth in the Italian top-flight last season after only losing one of their remaining games under Tudor, but finished the campaign without a trophy.