Juventus, at long last this summer (or at least that’s what it felt like), have signed a new goalkeeper. After weeks upon weeks upon weeks of rumors and chasing a pair of very well-known South Americans on high salaries, Juve has secured a goalkeeper from the Premier League once and for all.
For the 2026-27 season, at least.
Juventus announced the loan signing of Guglielmo Vicario on Tuesday. It’s a free loan with an option to buy for €8 million and another €2 million in potential bonuses if they make it permanent next summer. It comes at a time in Vicario’s career where the club he played the past three years, Tottenham Hotspur, basically told him they don’t want him around anymore. Then again, you see the 2025-26 season he had and what went wrong, maybe that’s pretty understandable.
So, Juve are hoping that a player who is looking to get his career back on track is the one that potentially makes the goalkeeper position less of a worry than it was a season ago when Michele Di Gregorio had his own mistake-filled 2025-26 campaogn.
When it comes to Juventus signing Vicario, here is what manager Luciano Spalletti said after the club’s friendly against the Next Gen squad on Monday:
“He’s a mature, intelligent guy, a professional, a footballer. As we said a few days ago, a footballer is a breed, a status, a species, because when you’re a footballer, you want that, you think about that even when you go home, in your free time you always mix your profession with your normal life. Then there are others who take themselves lightly, they’re young people in football, but what’s specific to the profession he does, in my opinion, should be like that and he manages to achieve more through commitment. Vicario is one of these. He’s a super serious, mature, experienced professional, he’s the right age, he’s had the right growth for his quality.”
(Source: TuttoJuve.com)
Spalletti went on to say how Vicario’s level is “top notch” and that the club never had any doubts about the former Empoli goalkeeper who will turn 30 years old in early October.
That is not surprising, of course. It’s not like Spalletti will come out and bash a signing on the cusp of it being officially announced. But when you see Spalletti greet Vicario in the halls of Juventus HQ at Continassa, then you see two guys who are quite happy to be seeing the other for the first time in quite a while.
And maybe being happy again after the last 12 months he had at Tottenham is the first step in Vicario showing signs of the goalkeeper we saw when he first moved to the Premier League three years ago.
So, the Juventus Question of the Day is basically the same one at the top of the page: What are realistic expectations for Guglielmo Vicario as Juventus’ new (starting) goalkeeper?
Leave a Comment