Not even the loan and the 235 kilometres of air between Lyon and Turin could save Loïs Openda from the injury curse that has been pursuing Juventus’s registered players throughout a Fantozzian start to the season. The scans following his exit in tears from the Lyon-Lens match have delivered the confirmed verdict: a microfracture of the right fibula. Minimum time out: the end of the November international break. Translated into fixtures: at least seven games missed.
Lyon’s Angry Statement — “He Was Not Protected”
Olympique Lyon are not attributing this injury to bad fortune and have said so in direct terms. The club’s communiqué is pointed: “This injury occurs at the end of a match in which Loïs Openda suffered repeated fouls from the opening minutes, in the face of a single disciplinary measure. Olympique Lyon deplores the treatment reserved for its player and considers that the athlete did not receive the necessary protection, up to the collision that now forces him to remain away from the pitches. More generally, OL reiterates that the safeguarding of players’ physical integrity must remain an absolute priority and that referees are its primary guarantors.”
The protest is legitimate and will be noted — but it does not change the medical reality facing Openda, his club, or the club that owns his registration.
Juventus’s Frustration — A Revaluation Process Interrupted at the Worst Moment
The wording is careful but the editorial direction is unmistakable: Juventus were watching a revaluation process — the Belgian had been building a case for a future permanent sale, producing two goals and an assist across ten starts in Ligue 1 — and that process has now been interrupted at precisely the point it was generating commercial momentum. The purchase option in the loan agreement and Juventus’s ability to extract significant value from an asset that had previously underperformed at the Continassa are both now complicated by a fibula fracture that rules him out of competitive football until November at the earliest. The curse, as the article frames it with resigned humour, apparently does not respect geographical distance.
David at Atletico — Simeone’s Verdict and the €25 Million Purchase Option
The second chapter — “Jonathan David, tre gol e due assist: l’Atletico Madrid valuta il riscatto” — tracks the other side of the summer loan army’s narrative, and it is a considerably more encouraging picture. Jonathan David, who told the media at Juventus that he “didn’t have time to adapt,” has now found his footing in the completely different environment Diego Simeone created for him in Madrid — three goals and two assists, including the derby winner against Real, in the opening weeks of his loan. Simeone’s assessment: “We needed someone like him.” The Atletico president and sporting direction are now seriously evaluating whether to exercise the €25 million purchase option. David told media he had “no time to adapt at Juventus” — but at the Metropolitano, a different manager with a different tactical frame and a different culture of intensity, he looks like someone who has been there for years.
For Juventus, a €25 million return on a player who arrived on a free transfer and generated a mixed record at the Continassa would represent a financially clean and commercially satisfactory conclusion to the David chapter — and a significant contribution towards the €100 million capital gains target by June 2027.
