A Look at Lyon

This is the first in a series of quick pro­files of some of the clubs involved in this year’s Cham­pi­ons League. We start with a look at defend­ing Ligue Une cham­pi­ons Olympique Lyonnais.

As in past sea­sons, Lyon have watched some of their top tal­ents leave for “big­ger” clubs (though higher wages and lower taxes are gen­er­ally believed to be a con­tribut­ing fac­tor). With the recent changes to their squad, the six-time reign­ing champs have had a slow start to the sea­son, hav­ing earned just three points from as many matches and they have lost their last two games. Lyon do have injury prob­lems with both goal­keeper Gre­gory Coupet and defender Cris side­lined for months with knee injuries. Also cur­rently on the injury list are Brazil­ian striker Fred, striker Sid­ney Govou and excit­ing young for­ward Hatem Ben Harfa.

With those injuries, it seems odd that they would let striker Syl­vain Wiltord leave for Stade Rennes but appar­ently he was let go because of a poor dis­ci­pli­nary record with the club. The 33-year-old Wiltord left Rennes in 1997 for Bor­deaux before mov­ing on to Arse­nal. Wiltord won the last three Ligue 1 titles with Lyon and also earned a French title with Bor­deaux in 1999. Dur­ing his four-year spell at Arse­nal, he won two Pre­mier League titles and lifted the FA Cup twice.

Also worth dis­cussing is that Lyon have a new man­ager. When Paul Le Guen departed, Ger­ard Houl­lier was brought in to guide the squad. Dep­site cruis­ing through the French league, Lyon were expected to progress in the Cham­pi­ons League. That has not hap­pened and many felt that Lyon had begun to move back­ward rather than improv­ing. They ended the sea­son in less than stel­lar form and over this sum­mer Alain Per­rin was brought in to get the team back on course. He has been given a strong core of play­ers to work with includ­ing Milan Baros, Jun­inho, Govou and new sign­ings Keita and full-back Nadir Bel­hadj, who had a strong show­ing at Sedan last season.

Here’s a quick list of the clubs trans­fers this summer.

Flo­rent Mal­ouda to Chelsea

Tiago to Juventus

Jeremy Berthod to Monaco

Math­ieu Bod­mer from Lille

Nadir Bel­hadj from Sedan