How Juventus plan to replace Conceicao against Inter in Derby d’Italia

Juventus have several options to replace Francisco Conceicao for the Derby d’Italia against Inter in Serie A this weekend, but Tuesday’s reports indicate that new signing Lois Openda is the most likely candidate to replace the Portugal international should he remain unavailable. 

Here are the ways Juventus could line up without Conceicao in the starting XI. 

How Juventus could line up without Conceicao 

The Portugal national team confirmed on Monday that Conceicao had left the national team training camp with muscular discomfort, which puts him in doubt for the highly-anticipated Serie A clash between Juventus and Inter on Saturday. 

Conceicao has started in both of Juventus’s first two Serie A matches of the season, both times playing alongside Kenan Yildiz, behind the centre-forward in a 3-4-2-1 system. The only other players who have played in those roles so far this season are Weston McKennie, who could replace the suspended Andrea Cambiaso at wing-back against Inter, and Nico Gonzalez, who has recently joined Atletico Madrid. 

If Tudor were to stick with the same system, the most natural replacements would be either Teun Koopmeiners or summer signing Edon Zhegrova. 

Zhegrova has not played competitively for nine months as a result of an adductor injury that kept him out of the second half of the 2024-25 season, so it appears unlikely that he will be thrown in as a starter in such a high-profile fixture. 

Koopmeiners remains a viable option, however, reports from the likes of La Gazzetta dello Sport and Tuttosport suggest that Openda is a more likely candidate to come into the starting XI. 

According to La Gazzetta, Tudor could be minded to slightly shuffle his tactics to either a 3-4-1-2 or a 3-5-2. In both instances, Kenan Yildiz would be the advanced-most of the midfielders, with Openda likely to play alongside Jonathan David slightly further up the pitch. 

There is also a possibility that Tudor decides to field Dusan Vlahovic alongside David instead, however, Openda will return earlier from national team duty than the Serbian, and therefore has more time to prepare for the Inter match in Serie A this weekend.