Juninho and Olympique Lyon dominate France, but European success has eluded them. (Philippe Merle/AFP/Getty Images).
Soccer: John F. Molinaro
Olympique Lyon still looking for respect
Last Updated Friday, Jan. 19, 2007
by John F. Molinaro
For all of its wealth, Chelsea can hardly hold a candle to French league champions Olympique Lyon when it comes to providing its supporters with more bang for their buck.
While fans at London's Stamford Bridge have been known to nod off from time to time - so pedestrian is the spectacle routinely produced by Roman Abramovich's team of global all-stars - spectators at the Stade de Gerland have hardly had time to catch their breath as Lyon has won five French league championships in a row with its stylish and cultured brand of attacking soccer.
Lyon currently sits atop the Ligue 1 standings with a comfortable 15-point lead on second-place Racing Lens after suffering just two defeats in 20 games. A winning combination of balanced scoring and miserly defence (they've only given up 13 goals) has been the key to Lyon's success this season.
Brazilian playmaker Juninho, a free kick specialist who puts David Beckham to shame - Bend it Like Beckham? More like Bend it Like Juninho - serves as the linchpin for Lyon, but he has been ably abetted by an exciting crop of unheralded stars, including 19-year-old forward Karim Benzema, Portuguese midfielder Tiago, winger Florent Malouda and fullback Eric Abidal.
Following a 4-1 loss to Lyon in October, Olympique Marseille president Pape Diouf resigned himself to the fact that his club would have to settle for second place this year.
"There is Lyon and then there are the other teams," Diouf said.
Triumphs on home soil over the years have not translated into European success, though. Lyon has meekly bowed out at the quarter-final stage of the last three Champions League tournaments, unable to break through the glass ceiling that French teams have historically hit their head on in the competition.
Tired of eating dinner at a rickety card table with the children, Lyon now wants to sit at the grownup's table with the rest of the adults.
Last week, Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas confirmed his club would become the first in France to float on the stock market. Aulas told France Football magazine of Lyon's plans to go public next month, a move he hopes will raise 100 million euros.
Aulas believes the recent change in French law preventing professional sports clubs from listing on the stock market will enable his team and others in France to compete with wealthier European sides, such as English heavyweights Chelsea and Manchester United, Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid and Italian giants AC Milan.
Of course, Lyon is already a wealthy club, having generated 127.7 million euros in revenue and enjoying a net profit of 15.9 million euros for the 2005-06 fiscal year that ended June 30.
But that's chump change when compared to their high-profile European counterparts - Real Madrid, for example, recently signed club soccer's most expensive TV rights deal, selling its broadcast rights to production company Mediapro in a seven-year deal worth 1.1 billion euros.
It's this gross inequality of wealth and resources that has not only stunted Lyon's growth, but strip-mined the club of some of its biggest stars.
An inability to match player wages paid abroad led to Michael Essien's transfer to Chelsea and Mahamadou Diarra's move to Real Madrid in the last two years. What's more, Michael Owen turned down a move to Lyon in 2005 and instead joined Newcastle United.
It says something about the low regard with which Lyon is held outside of France that a player of Owen's reputation and calibre would spurn the advances of the five-time French champions and instead choose to play for a mid-table Premiership club that hasn't won an English league championship since 1927.
Well, Monsieur Aulas is tired about the lack of respect his club has been shown, and with a major cash infusion, he thinks he can help Lyon become a big player in European soccer. It would be foolish to bet against him doing it, considering his track record.
A self-made millionaire, Aulas became president of Lyon in 1987, inheriting a club that was stuck in the second division and was playing before small, disinterested crowds in a city that cared more about rugby than it did soccer.
Today, Lyon are on the verge of winning a sixth straight league title, they've outgrown their 42,000-seat stadium, and the club boasts no less than eight players on France's national team roster. All that is missing from their impressive resume is a Champions League title.
It's been 14 years since Olympique Marseille, backed by the financial largesse of French businessman Bernard Tapie, upset AC Milan to win the Champions League crown.
No team from France has won the competition since, but if Aulas can raise the funds he needs to compete on equal financial terms with the likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea, it will be only a matter of time before Olympique Lyon are crowned champions of Europe.
Vive la revolution!
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