Juventus's long reign atop Italian football came to a shuddering halt at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino on Sunday night, as a dramatic 2-2 draw with Torino on the final day of the Serie A season condemned the Bianconeri to Champions League exile — their first absence from Europe's elite competition in a generation. The Old Lady led twice through Dušan Vlahović's clinical finishing, yet found themselves pegged back by a dogged Torino side who refused to surrender, with Ché Adams's 84th-minute equaliser salvaging a point neither team ultimately wanted.
The match itself was overshadowed by extraordinary scenes outside the ground earlier in the day, as clashes between rival ultras forced a postponement of kickoff by an hour — a grim prelude to what would unfold as a season-defining anticlimax for the Turin giants. When Juventus eventually took to the field, Vlahović wasted little time announcing his intentions. On 24 minutes, the Serbian striker latched on to Khéphren Thuram's cutback and stroked beyond Vanja Milinković-Savić to hand the visitors an early lead.
The disparity in possession was stark — Juventus monopolised the ball with 80 per cent, yet Torino's defensive shape held firm through the opening half. After the interval, Vlahović struck again inside 10 minutes of the restart. On 54 minutes, Francisco Conceição's delivery from the right found the Juve forward in a yard of space, and he finished with customary composure to make it 2-0. At that juncture, the game appeared settled; Manuel Locatelli's steady hand in midfield had dictated proceedings throughout, and the hosts looked bereft of attacking ambition.
But Torino's introduction of fresh legs—notably Cesare Casadei at the break and Duván Zapata soon after—altered the complexion entirely. On 60 minutes, just six minutes after Vlahović's second, Casadei halved the deficit. Rafa Obrador's pinged pass released the midfielder on the right side of the box, and Casadei's finish, clinical and composed, sparked an improbable revival. Juventus, sensing danger, embarked on a wholesale restructuring on 63 minutes, introducing Jonathan David and Emil Holm whilst Torino countered with Alieu Njie and Niels Nkounkou. The pendulum had swung.
As the clock ticked towards the finale, Torino pressed with increasing desperation and growing belief. On 84 minutes, deep in the shadows of injury time, Ché Adams conjured a moment of pure theatre — the Scot latched on to a loose ball inside the box and swept it past Matteo Perin to claim an unlikely point. By then, cards were flying for both sides; Pierre Kalulu had been cautioned for Juventus on 64, whilst Edon Zhegrova saw yellow in the closing stages amidst heated exchanges.
Vlahović, despite his withdrawal on 62 minutes, dominated proceedings with a rating of 8.0. His two finishes were clinical, each arriving from meticulously constructed Juventus moves, yet they would count for naught in the context of a season that has unravelled catastrophically. Locatelli's steadiness and Casadei's second-half emergence as the match's fulcrum underlined the gulf between preparation and execution—a chasm that, as Reuters reported on Sunday evening, has now cost Juventus and AC Milan their historic Champions League berths for the first time since 2011.
The draw leaves Juventus staring into an abyss. As Black White Read All Over noted in the immediate aftermath, "No win, no Champions League on the final day of the 2025-26 season. Just a perfect ending to a very bad campaign on the whole." The club's hierarchy now faces a reckoning; patron John Elkann faces critical decisions regarding manager Luciano Spalletti and the club's direction, with reconstruction rather than competition the summer's watchword. For Torino, a point salvaged from the jaws of defeat represents something close to catharsis — though for Juventus, it is merely the full stop on a sentence of underperformance.