Juventus vs Bologna

Very little separates these two when they meet, and the record says so in the bluntest way available: four draws in the last five. Juventus and Bologna drew 1-1 in Turin on 27 August 2023, 3-3 in Bologna on 20 May 2024, 2-2 in Turin on 7 December 2024 and 1-1 in Bologna on 4 May 2025, before Juventus finally took one, 1-0 away on 14 December this season with the goal arriving after a goalless first half.

Both of the recent fixtures staged at Juventus's ground ended level. That is the single most inconvenient fact for a home-win selection, and it deserves to be stated first rather than buried. The goal totals across the five run 2, 6, 4, 2 and 1, so there is no consistent scoring pattern to read either — one of them was a six-goal draw, another was decided by a single goal, and the most recent was the tightest of the lot. What survives the noise is that this pairing produces close matches, and that Juventus have won one of the last five.

Both clubs enter off strong 2024/25 campaigns. Juventus took fourth on 70 points from a record of eighteen wins, sixteen draws and only four defeats, a total matched by nobody but Napoli that season, though the sixteen draws cost them the ground they needed. Bologna came ninth on 62 points with 57 scored and 47 conceded.

This season Juventus sit fourth on 60 points from 32 games, goal difference plus 26, from seventeen wins, nine draws and six defeats. The home record is the pick's foundation: sixteen games at home for nine wins, six draws and a single defeat — 0-2 to Como on 21 February — with 32 scored and thirteen conceded. That is 33 points from sixteen home fixtures and two goals a game. It is also six draws, which is worth holding onto. Their recent run reads 1-1 at home with Sassuolo on 21 March, 2-0 at home over Genoa on 6 April and 1-0 away at Atalanta on 11 April.

Bologna are eighth on 48 points from the same 32, goal difference plus five, from fourteen wins, six draws and twelve defeats. Their split is the opposite of what the fixture would lead you to expect. At home they have taken twenty points from sixteen — six wins, two draws, eight defeats — while away from home they have taken twenty-eight from sixteen, with eight wins, four draws and four defeats, 26 scored and nineteen conceded. Bologna have been a better road team than a home team all season, and the current sequence is the strongest part of it: four consecutive away wins, at Torino on 15 February, at Pisa on 2 March, at Sassuolo on 15 March and at Cremonese on 5 April, followed by a 2-0 home win over Lecce on 12 April.

Twelve points separate fourth from eighth with six rounds to play, so the table gap is real, but it has been built on Juventus's consistency rather than on Bologna travelling badly.

First, the home record. One defeat in sixteen at home, thirteen conceded, and 32 scored is the strongest single argument in the fixture, and it holds across a full season rather than a hot month.

Second, and directly against it, Bologna's away record. Twenty-eight points on the road, eight away wins and four in a row is not the profile of a side that turns up at a top-four ground and folds. This is not a mismatch of the kind the price implies.

Third, the draw. Juventus have drawn six of sixteen at home; four of the last five meetings between these clubs finished level. Two independent lines of evidence point at the same outcome, and it is the outcome that beats this bet.

Fourth, Bologna's numbers on the road: nineteen conceded in sixteen away games, near enough identical to the eighteen they have shipped at home, but paired with 26 goals scored away from Bologna. They carry a genuine threat at the other end.

Fifth, what is at stake. Juventus in fourth with six left are in a position where dropped points are expensive; Bologna in eighth on 48 are close enough to the places above to keep playing for something. Neither side has a reason to be passive.

The case is a home side that has lost once in sixteen at its own ground and scored 32 there, against a visiting side twelve points behind in the table. At 1.65 that is a fair rather than generous price, and it sits in one of the few price bands on our record that has come close to breaking even, which is part of why a straight 1X2 is tolerable here rather than the double chance.

We are backing Juventus at 1.65 with medium confidence.

Medium is the correct rating and we would resist any argument for high. Two separate strands of evidence work against this selection and neither is marginal. The head-to-head has produced four draws in five meetings, including both of the recent fixtures played in Turin. And Bologna's away form — twenty-eight points from sixteen, eight wins, four of them consecutive going into this round — is better than their home form and a strong return by any standard. The 1-0 in December, the only Juventus win in the sequence, needed a second-half goal to break a stalemate.

The thing that beats the pick is the obvious one: a draw. Juventus have six at home this season, Bologna have four away, and this exact fixture has produced four in five. A 1-1 is comfortably the most likely single scoreline, and it takes the stake with it.