We have reached the final leg of Juventus’ big three-game stretch that we all knew would go a long way in determining just how much of a chance the Bianconeri had to qualify for the Champions League entering the final month of the 2025-26 season.

Little did we know that on top of winning those first two fixtures, Juve would get a massive amount of help to put them in prime position to qualify for Europe’s premier club competition — and then some — as they got ready to head to the San Siro to meet up with an old friend from much better times (at least the first time around) once more.

Things have changed massively in the last few weeks. And come Sunday night, there is the chance to say that once again if Juventus can keep their sudden winning run going.

Juventus’ second and final trip to the San Siro this weekend will see Luciano Spalletti’s squad put their recent uptick in winning form on the line against Max Allegri’s AC Milan that are far from in their best moment of the 2025-26 season. With Juve’s run of five wins in their last six games and Milan’s recent downward trend, the two arch-rivals are now separated by all of three points in the standings. That means, my friends, if Juventus were to win on Sunday night, they would be level on points and ahead in third place on goal differential — moving them ahead of a team that has been in second or third place for the vast majority of the season and looked like an absolute lock to have an easy top-four finish to Allegri’s first year back at the club.

Instead, Milan’s struggles over their last couple of months have now seen them both be overtaken by Napoli — which rolled to a win on Friday night to move into second place all by themselves — and now potentially by a Juventus team that just a couple of weeks ago wasn’t even in the top four.

Out of Juventus’ final five fixtures remaining this season, this is clearly the biggest of them all. After this big three-game stretch in which we are entering the final leg of this weekend, the landing is rather soft, with back-to-back fixtures against two teams in the relegation zone, Hellas Verona and Lecce, next up on the schedule. The highest-placed team left on Juventus’ schedule is Torino in 13th, with the Derby della Mole on the final weekend of the season hopefully simply a rivalry game where Champions League qualification worries aren’t present. That doesn’t mean you can take your foot off the gas — “run through the tape!” they will scream to you if you’d like — but it is a favorable final four fixtures left on the schedule.

But to think about all that now is getting a little too far ahead of ourselves. For now, Milan is the focus. Same goes for how to break down a Milan side that will surely try and grind out this kind of matchup because that is what Allegri is want to do so often.

How can Spalletti’s squad break down Milan’s expected low block?

How will they be able to limit Milan’s speed on the counterattack out of said low block?

Can Juve take their chances against a Milan team that has looked far from defensively solid in recent weeks?

I could go on, but for now I will limit to that simply because Juventus having more of the possession and just what they will be able to do with it feels like a certainty against an Allegri-coached team that went corto muso in their slim 1-0 win against 19th-place Hellas Verona last weekend. That was a win in Milan recorded their only shutout over the last five games, and a performance that left some in the Italian media asking if Rafa Leao did much of anything outside of assisting on what proved to be the game-winning goal.

So when it comes to how these two teams are playing entering such a big late-season fixture, it’s pretty easy to say that Juventus are in the better form. They’ve won five of their last six, while Milan has three of their last five and barely got past Serie B-bound Hellas Verona just a week ago. It’s got folks wondering about this being another instance of a late-season Allegri collapse of sorts.

Whether it’s actually that or something different, well that remains to be seen, I guess.

But Juventus certainly have the chance to pile on to Milan’s struggles and late-season frustrations on Sunday night. And not only would it be pretty nuts to say that Juve — a team that felt like it had its Champions League hopes on life support coming out of the international break — is level on points with Milan in third, going into the final month of the season on even stronger footing is a nice thing to think about compared to where they were.

Plus, winning at the San Siro is always fun. It’s the kind of party that you want to crash every single time. Or maybe in this case it’s going to be an incredibly nervy stadium based on Milan’s current form. Either way, a big win like this could do wonders for Champions League qualification and the overall feeling about Spalleti’s squad with just a few games remaining this season.

As has been the case for a handful of times in recent months, Luciano Spalletti did not hold a pre-match press conference the day before the showdown at the San Siro. Therefore, we’re not totally sure about the fitness of a few players, most notably a certain young Turkish star named Kenan Yildiz.

Much like last week, Yildiz trained separately pretty much all week due to his lingering knee inflammation issue that he’s had for the better part of the last few weeks. Yildiz, who played the final 20 minutes in last weekend’s win over Bologna, did return to training on Saturday and is expected to be called up — and maybe even start — for the trip to Milan.

Dusan Vlahovic partially trained with the group on Friday and was thought of to potentially be a surprise call-up against Milan. Like Yildiz, he returned to training with the rest of the group on Saturday, but it’s still an unknown about his status to face Milan, a club he has again been linked to joining this coming summer on a free-agent deal in recent days.

Mattia Perin returned to training with the group on Friday, but Michele Di Gregorio is expected to keep his starting spot in goal. Di Gregorio has been in goal for each one of Juventus’ three straight shutouts entering the trip to Milan.

Also back in training with the rest of the group late in the week: Khephren Thuram, Emil Holm and Vasilije Adzic.