While it wasn’t a busy summer transfer window on the whole for Juventus, it certainly ended up being a busy Deadline Day for the Bianconeri, who added a pair of attacking players before tings came to a close last week.
While we knew that one of those players, Edon Zhegrova, had a connection to Juventus considering he had already seen one of his Lille teammates arrive in Turin on a free transfer, there’s also another like to the Bianconeri with the other half of the Deadline Day signings: Loïs Openda
and what happened last October in Leipzig.
We all remember Gleison Bremer and the 2024-25 season-altering injury that happened when the big Brazilian center back tore his ACL in the Champions League against RB Leipzig. What some might forget is who was the other half of the 50/50 challenge that directly resulted in Bremer’s season coming to an end — and that is Openda, who arrived on loan with an obligation to buy under certain conditions on Deadline Day.
In the latest episode of Juventus’ Small Talk series that will be released on Wednesday, Bremer discussed now suddenly being teammates with the other half of the clash that saw him suffer the biggest injury of his career.
“It’s destiny … It’s God.
“Straight after the injury, after the match, he wrote to me apologising, saying he didn’t want for that to happen. Absolutely, it was an accident, a consequence of the game. I’ve done that action a thousand times before, but unfortunately it happened with him. These things happen. It’s normal.
“We haven’t seen each other here at Continassa yet, but it’s all good. He’ll still be apologising.”
(Source: Football Italia)
The last part certainly came with one of those classic big Bremer smiles — which certainly is a good sign of there being no ill will from the Brazilian side of the equation. (If you want to see for yourself, see Bremer flash that lovely smile of his when speaking about being teammates with Openda, just go ahead and watch the video.)
It is a situation in which we haven’t seen many times before — especially in recent years — when it comes to an established player like Bremer suddenly sees the player who is the other half of the challenge that led to him landing awkwardly, causing his knee to move in a way that it shouldn’t and subsequently see his season end with a torn ACL.
To see Bremer be so classy about it and handle things the way he does when Openda now being his teammate, it’s no surprise at all. This is just reflective of who he is as a person — and his injury recovery process certainly seemed to be a time in which he leaned heavily on his faith and family to help get him through it. The fact that he said Openda reached out right away after that early-October fixture had to help make things a little easier for a player who Juve only pivoted to on the transfer market because they couldn’t find a deal with Paris Saint-Germain for Randal Kolo Muani.
It will be interesting to see what else Bremer has to say about the injury and the comeback process when the full interview is released later this week. If the above clip is any guess, it’s going to show a man who has a great perspective on things and having to go through such a challenge to get back onto the field just made him that much stronger.
