An Atalanta team in transition head to Turin to face Juventus in Serie A's biggest match of the weekend

Khephren Thuram of Juventus and Yunus Musah of Atalanta sat down with CBS to talk about their respective season's so far

By Francesco Porzio

Sep 26, 2025 at 4:25 pm ET • 4 min read

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One of the headlines of Serie A Matchday 5 happens on Saturday in Turin where Juventus will face Atalanta on Saturday. The Bianconeri have had an extremely positive start of the season, with Igor Tudor's side winning the opening three matches of the season before last weekend's draw against Hellas Verona away. They currently sit second in the standings two points behind Napoli.

Atalanta, on the other hand, are dealing with the massive changes this summer brought when long-serving manager Gian Piero Gasperini left the Italian team and joined AS Roma. During his near decade in charge he was able to bring the club to the highest levels of European soccer, including winning the 2023-24 Europa League, defeating Bayer Leverkusen in the final 3-0. Under Ivan Juric, who joined the team this summer after the disappointing spells at AS Roma and Southampton, the Nerazzurri drew the opening two games of the Serie A season but then won the last two ones against Lecce and Torino.

Juventus enter crucial match looking for calm

Before last weekend's 1-1 draw with Juventus played back-to-back wild affairs, a 4-4 Champions League draw with Borussia Dortmund where the Italian team scored twice in injury time to rescue a home draw in a match that looked lost at 90 minutes. And that crazy draw followed hot on the heels of the team's iconic 4-3 win over Inter, giving them early bragging rights against one of their biggest rivals in Serie A. According to midfielder Khephren Thuram (whose brother Marcus was on the losing Inter side), the sides fast start is down to a host of factors, but one in particular he highlighted was the opportunity to play in last summer's Club World Cup.

"The World Cup was very important for us to all be together, to learn how to work together as a group," Thuram told CBS Sports Golazo Network. The midfielder further credited manager Igor Tudor for the team's early success this season. "Because he's really close to us, he can ask a lot of us, and we're gonna do it."

The matchup against Atalanta also brings a clash of Americans with Thuram's fellow midfielder, the man he described as a "great guy and a great teammate" Weston McKennie facing off against Yunus Musah. McKennie has once again forced himself into a Juventus managers plans, after Tudor's predecessors Thiago Motta and Maximilian Allegri both tried to move on from him only to see him play his way back into favor. The same is true now, with Mckennie starting at wingback in both of Juventus' wild four-goal-scoring affairs

Musah looks for stability at Atalanta

Unlike McKennie, fellow American Yunus Musah has had to look for new pastures to try and fight for playing time. During the summer of 2025, Musah joined Atalanta on loan from AC Milan. The American midfielder joined the CBS Sports podcast Call It What You Want to talk ahead of Saturday's match and spoke about his feelings on the summer move. Musah is a midfielder by trade, though he had spent his sparse minutes at Milan being deployed all over the pitch. At 22-years-old he's looking to settle into his preferred position. "For me to really develop in the middle, I'm at a time in my career where it's important for me to focus on that position and develop as much as I can in that area."

Then there's the small matter of playing on the world's biggest stage. Milan's disappointing eighth place finish left them outside the European competitions looking in, unlike his new home. "Atalanta, they're in the Champions League, and having played in the Champions League in past seasons, I wanted to carry that on. That was something huge that really caught my attention. I'm trying to develop as an all-round midfielder and be the most complete midfielder I can be. You need to play in different formations, etc. But if you're a complete midfielder, you'll be able to adapt to any formation. That's my goal, to really develop in that aspect and to really learn from my coach here and the national team."

Musah has certainly gotten his wish, though at times it has been a trial by fire. In Atalanta's first Champions League match of the season, Musah was in the starting lineup, unfortunately for him and his teammates, the team on the other side of the ball was a rampant, title-defending Paris Saint-Germain squad that opened the scoring in the third minute and never looked back on their way to a 4-0 win.

It was a learning experience, and Musah knows he also has to improve ahead of a key season that will lead to the 2026 World Cup in the United States. "In the final third, be more brave to make that decisive pass. Also be more clinical to get more goals. I'm really working in that area. I can really drive with the ball and penetrate teams in that manner, but I need to work on controlling the game a little bit. I'm sure the managers are watching [Atalanta's games] and seeing how we're doing. Hopefully they're watching and seeing our progress."

It's a crucial season for the midfielder, who was a mainstay for the United Stats men's national team for years, but skipped the Gold Cup last summer and hasn't been called into several of manager Mauricio Pochettino's recent national team camps. Musah, however remains undeterred. "Plans for June 2026? My plan is to start in the game, listen to the anthem, and that's it." What better way to make an impression than to get on the field against Juventus against the likes of Thuram and possibly McKennie, and make his mark.