There is a door to close starting from the first match of 2026, next Saturday in Como. Because Udinese cannot hope to continue to maintain a high pace without developing a defense that is, numerically, the worst in Serie A, albeit on par with Fiorentina and Turin who have conceded the same number of goals, 28.
And it is clear that the review will start right from the goal, as the “workshop chief” Kosta Runjaic also admitted already in the heat of the moment, after having squeezed out a small point in the final, at the last minute, demonstrating that the rearguard must be 100 percent impervious to obtain a victory against opponents of a certain caliber, as confirmed by the 1-0 at the Friuli – Bluenergy Stadium against Atalanta and Napoli. «There we will have to avoid the mistakes that we have made in the last period – confessed the Juventus coach – and on which we are working, errors that have allowed our opponents to take courage, as happened for example in the home match against Genoa, where we gave away a penalty.
We didn’t play that match badly, one episode was enough to change the course of the match. And also in Florence we made another mistake that should absolutely be avoided”, concluded Runjaic citing two major errors from Maduka Okoye, the starter who will be available again after having served the disqualification against Fiorentina together with the expulsion after just 9 minutes of play with a reckless exit from the area.
Precisely the fact that Mr. Kosta – usually extremely careful not to go unbalanced – has publicly put the Nigerian’s blunders under the microscope, means that within the staff and “in competition” with the club there is an ongoing reflection on ownership, especially since Daniele Padelli demonstrated great reliability in the match against Lazio, also making a decisive intervention for the purposes of the result in the final sprint.
The 40-year-old from Lecco (but now Friulian by adoption) has overtaken Razvan Sava in the hierarchy of Juventus goalkeepers: the Romanian, after an encouraging stretch of tournament exactly one year ago these days, thanks to Okoye’s injury at the beginning of the season, to make up for the absence of the Nigerian punished for the “betting case”, did not confirm his growth, as was seen in Florence when he entered the race after Maduka’s expulsion.
He could end up on the market in January, just to test himself again, perhaps in Serie B or abroad, on loan. A solution that Udinese was considering – but exclusively in Italy, according to rumors – for the baby Alessandro Nunziante, the Italian born in 2007 who however will not leave unless he has the security of a starting place.
He is the goalkeeper of the future for Udinese. The one present in Como should still be Okoye, even if the impression is that the 26-year-old Nigerian has received a sort of warning, because the series of errors in the last month and a half, starting with the wrong back pass against Bologna, are far too many.
