Loïs Openda Reflects on Juventus Move: Lessons Learned
Loïs Openda still refuses to call it a mistake.
The Belgian striker’s move from RB Leipzig to Juventus in 2025 never caught fire, yielded just one goal in 34 appearances, and ended with a loan to Lyon. Yet when he looks back at that season in Turin, he sees lessons rather than regret.
A move that never truly clicked
Speaking to L’Equipe, Openda laid out the context of a transfer that always seemed complicated on paper. Juventus wanted him. So did the coach. The problem was everything around that.
“The coach wanted me, but Vlahovic and David were already playing in my position,” he said, recalling those months at the Allianz Stadium.
He arrived as a forward who thrives on space, on runs in behind, on stretching defences. He walked into a league that often compresses the pitch and a team that did not naturally play to his strengths.
“In Italy, the team that really exploits depth is Inter. Roma are only just starting to understand it,” Openda noted. It was a sharp tactical observation, and it went to the heart of why he never quite fit at Juventus.
Chemistry with David, contrast with Vlahovic
Inside that Juventus attack, Openda found one partnership that worked.
“I had good chemistry with David,” he admitted. The understanding with Jonathan David, another forward comfortable linking play and attacking space, offered a glimpse of what might have been in a different system, or with different habits around them.
The contrast with Dusan Vlahovic was stark.
“The team wasn’t used to playing with a player who runs in behind, and Vlahovic tended to keep the ball to himself.”
It was not a personal attack, more a blunt description of styles that never meshed. Vlahovic wants the ball to feet, wants to dominate the move. Openda wants to explode into space. Juventus, caught between those profiles, rarely found a way to maximise either together.
Lessons under Tudor and Spalletti
Openda worked under Igor Tudor and Luciano Spalletti during that 2025-26 campaign, two demanding coaches with very different approaches. The numbers were unforgiving: one goal in 34 games across all competitions.
“I tried to get my chance, and sometimes I did, but towards the end of the season, I realised that to play, I had to leave,” he said.
There was no dramatic fallout, no public rupture. Just a cold, professional conclusion from a player who understood that his career could not stall on a bench in Turin.
Yet he stands firm on one point: the decision to leave RB Leipzig for Juventus still made sense to him.
“It wasn’t a mistake, and it allowed me to work on aspects I hadn’t considered,” Openda insisted. “I knew exactly what I was getting into, and I’m sure that in other circumstances, it would have gone better.”
A fresh start in Lyon, without a safety net
Those “other circumstances” now lie in France. On loan at Lyon for the 2026-27 season, Openda has scored two goals in eight appearances so far. It is not an explosive start, but it is a platform, and crucially, it is regular football.
Lyon paid €3.5m to bring him in on loan, a significant outlay for a temporary deal. There is no option to buy. Every run, every goal, every performance this season is both an audition and a statement.
For Openda, who has already lived the weight of a big move and the frustration of a system that never suited him, this year in Lyon is more than a reset. It is a chance to prove that the version of himself Juventus never quite unlocked still exists – and that the next big decision in his career will land on his terms.
