Loïs Openda Reflects on Serie A Experience

Loïs Openda has missed out on Belgium’s 2026 World Cup squad and endured a lean year in front of goal, but he refuses to file his Italian adventure under “failure”.

For the Belgian forward, that single campaign in Serie A still moved his career forward.

Speaking to L’Equipe, Openda went back to the beginning, to the pitch laid out for him before he set foot in Italy. “I spoke with Damien Comolli, who was then the club director, and he explained how he intended to use me in a difficult league,” he said, underlining that he knew exactly what kind of tactical battleground awaited him.

Serie A, he quickly learned, does not always suit runners who thrive on space. “In Italy, the team that really exploits depth is Inter. Roma are only just starting to understand it,” he noted, a sharp observation from a striker who lives off balls slid in behind rather than to feet.

Inside his own dressing room, the competition for his preferred role was fierce and unrelenting. “The coach wanted me, but Vlahovic and David were already playing in my position,” Openda explained. He felt a natural connection with one of them. “I had good chemistry with David, but the team wasn’t used to playing with a player who runs in behind, and Vlahovic tended to keep the ball to himself.”

The dynamic was clear: two established forwards, one stylistic outlier, and a system that did not quite bend to his strengths.

Openda still fought for minutes. “I tried to get my chance, and sometimes I did,” he said. But the pattern of the season hardened. Cameos, flashes, no real run. “Towards the end of the season, I realised that to play, I had to leave.”

That decision, he insists, was not a step back. It was a calculated move. “It wasn’t a mistake, and it allowed me to work on aspects I hadn’t considered. I knew exactly what I was getting into, and I’m sure that in other circumstances, it would have gone better.”

He leaves Italy without the numbers he wanted and without a World Cup ticket, but with the conviction that the tactical education, the fight for space and status, will sharpen the next chapter of his career rather than define the last one.