McKennie set to become Juventus's most-capped current player
A start at Cagliari would take Weston McKennie past the injured Manuel Locatelli and make him the longest-serving player in Juventus's current squad.
Weston McKennie is poised to overtake Manuel Locatelli as the Juventus player with the most appearances in the current squad, with Corriere dello Sport reporting, via TuttoMercatoWeb, that the American is expected to start away at Cagliari this weekend.
A start at the Unipol Domus would take McKennie to 234 appearances for the club, one more than Locatelli, who is sidelined through injury and therefore unable to defend his place at the top of the list.
The gap behind the pair is substantial. Daniele Rugani sits third on 157 appearances, with Federico Gatti on 139, Andrea Cambiaso on 134, Kenan Yildiz on 132 and Gleison Bremer on 128, according to the same report.
A midfielder who never settles into one job
McKennie's longevity at Juventus is unusual for a player who has rarely occupied a single, settled position. He has been used as a holding midfielder, a box-to-box presence and an attacking midfielder, often within the same season, and that adaptability appears to be exactly why four different coaches have kept finding a role for him.
Luciano Spalletti, the latest of those coaches, summed up the appeal directly: "He knows every corner of the pitch. He's a holding midfielder, a midfielder, an attacking midfielder, he plays wherever he likes," Spalletti said, according to Corriere dello Sport.
That versatility matters more at Juventus than it might elsewhere, because the club has cycled through four head coaches since McKennie signed in 2020 — Massimiliano Allegri, Thiago Motta, Igor Tudor and now Spalletti — each with a different tactical template. A player who can be inserted into several systems without a rebuild of the midfield around him becomes difficult to leave out, whatever the formation of the week happens to be.
Durability through injury and a quiet goal tally
The appearance record arrives despite, not because of, a smooth campaign. McKennie missed almost a month with a muscle problem and has yet to score this season, a contrast with the player who currently shares the squad's all-time scoring lead at Juventus, level with Yildiz on 27 goals apiece.
What stands out is how quickly he returned to the first-choice picture once fit. Corriere dello Sport notes he has been central to the side again since coming back against NEC, suggesting Spalletti sees him as more valuable for his range of functions than for end product in front of goal right now.
That distinction is worth making plain: McKennie's case for selection has rarely rested on goals. His 27 are a career tally built up over six seasons, not a marker of current form, and the number that matters more to his status this week is appearances, not scoring output.
Why the contract and the club record both point the same way
McKennie signed for Juventus in 2020 and is now under contract until 2030, a deal that effectively guarantees he will keep climbing the club's all-time appearance list for years to come. Passing Locatelli this weekend only moves him level with players from a different era of the club altogether.
The names above him on the all-time list underline how far he still has to go to be considered among Juventus's great servants rather than simply its most durable current player: Edgar Davids on 235 appearances, Fabio Capello on 239, Wojciech Szczesny on 252, Omar Sivori on 253 and Stephan Lichtsteiner on 258.
Overtaking Davids would require only one more appearance after Cagliari, which places that milestone within immediate reach if Spalletti continues to trust him as heavily as he has since the NEC return. The longer path, toward Lichtsteiner's 258, is a measure of just how long McKennie's Juventus career has already run and how much longer it is contracted to continue.
For now, the more immediate story is simpler: a player signed as a squad option in 2020 is about to become the player who has turned out most often for the Juventus currently on the pitch, ahead of long-serving defenders and academy-developed attackers alike.