Lyon: the Best Club to Have Never Won the Champions League?

[wiseone]

Look at some of the players they have sold/let go in recent years. Imagine if these players were still at the club:

Gregory Coupet
Eric Abidal
Essien
Mahamadou Diarra
Juninho Pernambucano
Vhikash Dhorasoo
Florent Malouda
Ben Arfa
Benzema
Sonny Anderson

What I don't undestand is...they got BIG money for these players they sold. They got about 70 million from the sales of Benzema, Diarra, Essien and Malouda alone. How come they are not bigger players on the European stage?

[kenmega]

What about Arsenal?

[kdk4christ]

What about Arsenal?

They reach final but Lyon no dey pass knock out stages or quarter final

[kenmega]

What about Arsenal?

They reach final but Lyon no dey pass knock out stages or quarter final

You could say that Arsenal were the best team to have never won the Champions League...(BOKE)...with the players they had...(BOKE)

[wiseone]

What do Lyon do with all the massive money they receive from these gigantic transfers?

[wale1974]

Money doesn't buy big UEFA championship cups, just ask chelsea....................lol

[Purity]

Valencia has better claim to that.

[Molue Conductor]

one of Valencia, Arsenal or Inter or Chelsea (in recent rimes)

[Ziontrain]

Look at some of the players they have sold/let go in recent years. Imagine if these players were still at the club:

Gregory Coupet
Eric Abidal
Essien
Mahamadou Diarra
Juninho Pernambucano
Vhikash Dhorasoo
Florent Malouda
Ben Arfa
Benzema
Sonny Anderson

What I don't undestand is...they got BIG money for these players they sold. They got about 70 million from the sales of Benzema, Diarra, Essien and Malouda alone. How come they are not bigger players on the European stage?

You have to understand several things in the big picture.

First of all they pay in France so that means their stadium attendance local TV intake is nothing like what they could get if they were in say Spain or England. It also means that the Club pay a lot of tax on its own income and no matter what that the high taxes on incomes will also drive high performing players on to Italy, Spain, England etc where their salaries will also be bigger too.

Besides you should look up whom their owner (Aulas) is. He is not a "benefactor" or some kind of french Jack Walker - he earned the money he used to buy the club the hard way.

But in any case you overstate the level these guys are at. I always saw them as being more of a team that punhced above their weight using a good team structure to hitch on to the production of a few high-performing players. I mean as you have seen in the long run Govou and Malouda are really role players and guys like ben Arfa are frankly overrated. Lyon have done well just to reach the late stages of the CL so often. I dont know why you expect more.

[wiseone]

Ziontrain. Two questions:

1) At one time these guys had Essien, Diarra, Juninho, Malouda, Abidal, Coupet and Dhorasoo in the team at the same time. Can you really tell me that these players were overrated? They did reach the QF of the Champions League 3 times in a row. That is the nucleus of a very strong side. Juninho scored approx 45 free kicks for Lyon in his time there (nearly half of his goals for Lyon).

2) I repeat: what does Aulas/Lyon do with all the money they receive from transfer fees? They must have received over 100 million in the last 3-4 years alone.

Look at some of the players they have sold/let go in recent years. Imagine if these players were still at the club:

Gregory Coupet
Eric Abidal
Essien
Mahamadou Diarra
Juninho Pernambucano
Vhikash Dhorasoo
Florent Malouda
Ben Arfa
Benzema
Sonny Anderson

What I don't undestand is...they got BIG money for these players they sold. They got about 70 million from the sales of Benzema, Diarra, Essien and Malouda alone. How come they are not bigger players on the European stage?

You have to understand several things in the big picture.

First of all they pay in France so that means their stadium attendance local TV intake is nothing like what they could get if they were in say Spain or England. It also means that the Club pay a lot of tax on its own income and no matter what that the high taxes on incomes will also drive high performing players on to Italy, Spain, England etc where their salaries will also be bigger too.

Besides you should look up whom their owner (Aulas) is. He is not a "benefactor" or some kind of french Jack Walker - he earned the money he used to buy the club the hard way.

But in any case you overstate the level these guys are at. I always saw them as being more of a team that punhced above their weight using a good team structure to hitch on to the production of a few high-performing players. I mean as you have seen in the long run Govou and Malouda are really role players and guys like ben Arfa are frankly overrated. Lyon have done well just to reach the late stages of the CL so often. I dont know why you expect more.

[kajifu]

Chelsea is the team that with all the stars they are even fear to win cl tittle

[Lestatmera1]

Ziontrain. Two questions:

1) At one time these guys had Essien, Diarra, Juninho, Malouda, Abidal, Coupet and Dhorasoo in the team at the same time. Can you really tell me that these players were overrated? They did reach the QF of the Champions League 3 times in a row. That is the nucleus of a very strong side. Juninho scored approx 45 free kicks for Lyon in his time there (nearly half of his goals for Lyon).

2) I repeat: what does Aulas/Lyon do with all the money they receive from transfer fees? They must have received over 100 million in the last 3-4 years alone.

Look at some of the players they have sold/let go in recent years. Imagine if these players were still at the club:

Gregory Coupet
Eric Abidal
Essien
Mahamadou Diarra
Juninho Pernambucano
Vhikash Dhorasoo
Florent Malouda
Ben Arfa
Benzema
Sonny Anderson

What I don't undestand is...they got BIG money for these players they sold. They got about 70 million from the sales of Benzema, Diarra, Essien and Malouda alone. How come they are not bigger players on the European stage?

You have to understand several things in the big picture.

First of all they pay in France so that means their stadium attendance local TV intake is nothing like what they could get if they were in say Spain or England. It also means that the Club pay a lot of tax on its own income and no matter what that the high taxes on incomes will also drive high performing players on to Italy, Spain, England etc where their salaries will also be bigger too.

Besides you should look up whom their owner (Aulas) is. He is not a "benefactor" or some kind of french Jack Walker - he earned the money he used to buy the club the hard way.

But in any case you overstate the level these guys are at. I always saw them as being more of a team that punhced above their weight using a good team structure to hitch on to the production of a few high-performing players. I mean as you have seen in the long run Govou and Malouda are really role players and guys like ben Arfa are frankly overrated. Lyon have done well just to reach the late stages of the CL so often. I dont know why you expect more.

Strictly about the money, did you not read what he said about taxes in France? that ish is real and brutal bruh.

[wiseone]

Time to resurrect this. What a team Lyon could have been had they not been a constant selling club. If they spent 20 million on buying new players, they'd be strong CL contenders.....


Lyon made two swaps, stepped forward 10 yards and stung Real Madrid

After reinvesting imaginatively, Lyon are looking to break new ground and get past the quarter-finals in the Champions League

The €8m Lyon spent on Miralem Pjanic, their scorer at the Bernabéu, already looks like good value. Photograph: Denis Doyle/Getty Images

Matchday morning in Madrid. The Lyon players are in their team hotel, resting their bodies and preparing their minds for a European adventure that teeters over the precipice. Bernard Lacombe, the club's former striker and modern cheerleader, notices that the players are unusually quiet over their croissants. "As early as breakfast time I felt that they were focused. They were not saying very much. It's not often that they are like this."

A few hours later Lyon's focus was even more extraordinary. Their moment of Champions League deliverance in front of a flabbergasted audience at the Bernabéu was a consequence of an extremely well-executed 180 minutes. Lyon did just about everything right in the first leg – squeezing the flair our of their opponents, guarding a clean sheet and earning a win advantage to carry over to Spain.

But it is what happened at half-time in Madrid that really showed the mettle of Claude Puel's squad. They knew they had been through a storm in the first-half but when they surveyed the damage and saw that there was nothing worse than Cristiano Ronaldo's goal, they were ready to grip the steering wheel and power through the gears. They made two half-time changes – forced by knocks but risky business all the same – pushed 10 yards up the pitch and pressed as boldly as they have ever pressed before. They were tigerish in the tackle and audacious in the attack and put in what L'Equipe could not resist describing as a "galactic" performance.

This what not what Real expected. It was not really what Lyon expected, either. Last year they faced Barcelona at the same stage, drew 1-1 at the Stade Gerland and travelled with a modicum of hope. They were thumped 5‑2 at Camp Nou.

Miralem Pjanic's goal brought one of those moments where real time lurches into slow motion. Can it be? Is this happening? Those feelings were even sharper because of the suspicion that Real would do exactly what they did: throw discipline out of the window, dive preposterously in search of a penalty and kick petulantly because their story had been hijacked. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time for a great side to score twice at home. But hey, maybe this £240m collection is not such a great side.

It is easy to bill the result as a victory for the paupers. In fairness, all clubs look underprivileged compared with Real. But although Lyon have cashed in handsomely on players they developed throughout their period of domestic dominance – Madrid bought two of them in Mahamadou Diarra and Karim Benzema for €26m (£17m) and €30m (£20m) respectively – they are decent spenders by Champions League standards.

In the past couple of years Lyon have spent heartily on Lisandro López (€24m), Michel Bastos (€18m), Aly Cissokho (€15m), César Delgado (€11m). They sell very well, then re-invest imaginatively and the cycle continues. It is a policy that serves them well and an unbeaten period since they returned from their winter break now puts them in position to try to regain the French title as well as break new ground in the Champions League. They have never before been beyond the quarter-finals. As Puel said proudly: "This team is writing its own story."

Little wonder Jean-Michel Aulas, the Lyon president who oversees his project with infinitely more hard-nosed business nous than Florentino Pérez, felt emotional in the Bernabéu. "I shouldn't say so but I did shed a little tear," he confessed. "Now we have crazy dreams in our heads and one is to come back here for the final."

The €8m they spent on Pjanic, the hero of the Bernabéu, already looks like good value. The Bosnian midfielder is only 19 and despite the unenviable task of filling the boots of Lyon's former talisman Juninho Pernambucano, he is doing well enough to suggest he might be involved in another mega-sale in a few years' time. "It was a magic night," said Panjic. "It's enormous."

It is notable that all of the teams through to the last eight so far benefited from away goals. Manchester United gave themselves the platform to rout Milan with three in Italy. Arsenal felt able to overturn their errors in Porto without too much anxiety settling in because they had an away goal of their own from the Estádio do Dragão. Bayern's rally, which was crowned by Arjen Robben's miraculous goal in Florence, proved decisive.

How harsh this exit feels for Fiorentina, the only team knocked out who did score an away goal, and they have the frustration of an illegal goal awarded to Bayern by the referee Tom Henning Ovrebo just to make them feel even worse.

Despite the best efforts of Bayern Munich to win this week's Champions League Oscar for best action, the workaholics from Lyon deservedly stole the show. And that left Real Madrid stuck with the role of drama queens.

Tears of admiration for Haiti's beaten keeper

The courageous tale of the Haiti Under-17s women reached a milestone this week when they became the first sports team from the island to take part in international competition since the earthquake. Against all probability, they took the field in Costa Rica in the opening match of the Concacaf championships for their age-group. Pitted against the USA they lost 9‑0, and at the end of the game their goalkeeper, Alexandra Coby, burst into tears.

The USA keeper, Bryane Heaberlin, ran towards her and embraced her in a tight hug, soon to be followed by all of the opposition team who surrounded Coby in a group hug that lasted almost two minutes. When it broke up, girls from both teams wept.

"I saw her crying and that was pretty hard for me to see," said Heaberlin. "She's a keeper and we have that bond. I knew that she had probably lost people close to her, and when she goes home she might not have anywhere to go. I gave her a big hug and told her she did great. She came to compete in this tournament despite all that she's been through and I have tremendous respect for her."

[Ziontrain]

Its a bit overhyped to talk about "what if they had kept these players". Actually a lot of those players Lyon has sold have proven to be overrated relative to price sold and. Its mainly Essien who was worth his price, but the likes of Diarra, Benzema, Malouda, Sonny Anderson have all looked like okay players sold at superstar prices

And the ones they buy tend to be underrated for the price.

So to me it just says that Lyon has been smart. It's the old stock market adage: "buy low and sell high".

And that's not counting Govou who they kept . That dude was so overhyped at one point that they would have gotten huge money for him.

[wiseone]

I'm sure they will sell Lisandrop Lopes one day for big money too. But beating Real Madrid, given the gulf in $ between the two teams, is a massive achievement.

[phantomjournalist]

Definitely Chelsea, and they haven't done so simply because of bad luck.

[kofi86]

Arsenal beat Porto 5-0, so at the end their away goal was irrelevant.
And Fiorentina actually scored an away goal against Bayern.

The best squad to never win the CL, had Lazio Rom during 2000-2002 imo

[Heliopolis]

Definitely Chelsea, and they haven't done so simply because of bad luck.

It's not bad luck.

Chelsea have the talent necessary to win the UCL but they are always done in by negative tactics. Instead of trying to win UCL matches (in the late stages), they just try to prevent their opponents from winning. Look at those times they lost to Liverpool, or the 2 times they lost to Barca, or the loss to Man Utd. They dont go forward enough to win the match but instead commit too many players in defense and it has burned them year-in and year-out.

To answer OPs question, I cant say Chelsea right now because their team is still very good and more than capable of winning the UCL in the near future. I cant say Lyon either because of the huge gap between France and England/Spain/Italy.

I'd say Inter from 6-7 years ago, Arsenal from around 2004, etc.

[kofi86]

Definitely Chelsea, and they haven't done so simply because of bad luck.

It's not bad luck.

Chelsea have the talent necessary to win the UCL but they are always done in by negative tactics. Instead of trying to win UCL matches (in the late stages), they just try to prevent their opponents from winning. Look at those times they lost to Liverpool, or the 2 times they lost to Barca, or the loss to Man Utd. They dont go forward enough to win the match but instead commit too many players in defense and it has burned them year-in and year-out.

Hm I don't agree with that.
When they lost to Manchester in the final or against Barca, they had more than enough chances, but failed to score from them

[Heliopolis]

So if a team does not convert chances then how is that bad luck?

Winners/losers in this sport are determined by chances converted.

[kajifu]

Definitely Chelsea, and they haven't done so simply because of bad luck.

It's not bad luck.

Chelsea have the talent necessary to win the UCL but they are always done in by negative tactics. Instead of trying to win UCL matches (in the late stages), they just try to prevent their opponents from winning. Look at those times they lost to Liverpool, or the 2 times they lost to Barca, or the loss to Man Utd. They dont go forward enough to win the match but instead commit too many players in defense and it has burned them year-in and year-out.

To answer OPs question, I cant say Chelsea right now because their team is still very good and more than capable of winning the UCL in the near future. I cant say Lyon either because of the huge gap between France and England/Spain/Italy.

I'd say Inter from 6-7 years ago, Arsenal from around 2004, etc.

Maradona i agree with you on this one.If you watch Chelsea vs Barca last year that was what happen Drogba refused to play but keep falling down for negative tactics to get a penalty.The go to Spain for a draw with barca instead for a win

[kofi86]

So if a team does not convert chances then how is that bad luck?

Winners/losers in this sport are determined by chances converted.

Seriously what kind of post is that?
Where is the logic?

The number and quality of chances created by Chelsea against Manchester United and Barca and the number and quality of chances those teams had against them are a good reason that it was not their negative football that cost them, but the inability of converting chances.

[Heliopolis]

So by your logic, if a team creates more chances than their opponents but they lose, then they are unlucky?

When Arsenal lost 2-0 to Chelsea a few months back despite creating more chances, they were unlucky to lose?

No. The outcome of every football match is determined by the conversion of chances.

Missing chances and then losing does not make you unlucky.

Chelsea have lost due to their negative tactics over the past 5-years or so. They lost twice to Liverpool by playing a retarded 4-5-1 formation in which they just packed the midfield with 5-midfielders, abandoned the wings and had 1 lone striker up infront with no service.

In 2006 they tried the same crap against Barcelona but they got dominated.

In 2009 against Barca they went to the Nou Camp looking for a draw and they got it. Then they got a miracle goal by Essien (a shot that would go in maybe 20% of the time) and tried to sit on it for the rest of the match. Justice prevailed and Barcelona got the late equalizer that sent boring and defensive Chelsea home.

What's your reasoning for Chelsea scoring a grand total of 4 goals in 8 matches against Liverpool (2005 and 2007, and Barcelona 2006 and 2009). Missed chances and bad luck?

The only exception was the 2008 season when Avram Grant had this team playing attacking football. They scored a bunch of goals against Liverpool in the semis and actually pressed Man Utd. in the finals. However, every other manager of the club has tried a defensive approach in the late stages of the UCL and has failed.