Juventus Edge Udinese As Spalletti Closes In On 300th Serie A Win With Yildiz Spark

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Juventus earned a 1-0 win over Udinese that strengthened their Serie A top-four push and left Luciano Spalletti one victory short of 300 league wins as a coach, with Jeremie Boga deciding the match and Kenan Yildiz again central to much of the team’s attacking threat.

Boga struck just before half-time from close range, finishing a low cross after Yildiz produced a driving run from the left and then calmly picked out the pass, and although Juventus later saw a second goal ruled out following a VAR review, the single strike proved enough to secure the points away from home.

The result moved Juventus into the Serie A top four ahead of Sunday’s key meeting between fifth-place Como and sixth-place Roma, and it also brought Spalletti to 299 career wins in Italy’s top division, leaving the coach needing one more success to reach the 300 mark in Serie A.

Juventus briefly thought the advantage had doubled when Francisco Conceicao found the net midway through the second half after another move that began with Yildiz, yet the celebrations ended when VAR intervened and ruled that Teun Koopmeiners had obstructed Maduka Okoye’s view from an offside position during the attack.

Since Spalletti took charge of Juventus on October 30, the team collected 38 Serie A points, with only Inter on 50 and AC Milan on 42 earning more in that span, underlining Juventus’ improved consistency under the coach while also highlighting how much remained at stake in the battle near the top.

Within this period, Yildiz developed into a decisive figure and became the first Juventus player since the 2004-05 campaign to contribute to 15 league goals in a single Serie A season before turning 21, with the playmaker scoring nine goals and providing six assists in domestic competition.

Across the division this season, Yildiz stood among only three players to record more than five goals and more than five assists in Serie A, joining Inter’s Federico Dimarco, who had six goals and 14 assists, and Como’s Nico Paz, who matched Yildiz with nine goals and six assists.

The narrow win, the disallowed second goal and Yildiz’s creative display all fed into a larger picture for Juventus, with Spalletti closing on a personal Serie A landmark while the club strengthened control of a top-four place ahead of critical fixtures for direct rivals Como and Roma.