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Anthony Racioppi

Anthony Racioppi became the third choice goalkeeper at Olympique Lyonnais in the 2018-19 season. For the time being, the twenty-one year old gets most of his action with the reserve team playing in the National 2 division as his rise through the ranks is blocked by Anthony Lopes and Ciprian Tătărușanu.

However, Racioppi is respectively eight and thirteen years younger than that duo, so if he bides his time and continues to improve then his opportunity will come. He has already been included in Swiss national squads at various age-group levels.

Racioppi was first spotted by Lyon as a schoolboy in Geneva where he was playing youth football with CS Chenois. He signed a contract with Lyon and moved to the city but FIFA rules regarding the international transfer of minors meant that he was initially barred from appearing for the club’s youth teams.

After a long period of training but no matches, Racioppi was loaned to FC Annecy in the 2013-14 season, for whom he was permitted to play competitive youth team football because the town is located within 50 km of the Swiss border. He had a successful season there and received his first call up to the Swiss U17 squad.

Back at Lyon in 2015 Racioppi was finally able to become fully integrated into the youth setup leading to his first professional contract being signed with the club in October 2017. He has become a regular between the sticks for the reserve team since then and it’s surely only a matter of time until he gets a taste of first team action, having made several appearances on the bench over the past three seasons.

UPDATE:
Racioppi left Lyon in late September 2020 to sign for Dijon, where he joined up with former Lyon goalkeeping coach Gregory Coupet, who had made the same move earlier that summer.

Date of Birth: 31/12/1998
Place of Birth: Geneva
Nationality: Swiss
Joined OL: 2012

Previous teams:
CS Chenois
FC Annecy

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Thiago Mendes

Thiago Henrique Mendes Ribeiro, better known simply as Thiago Mendes*, is a Brazilian defensive midfielder who signed for Lyon from Lille for €25 million in the summer of 2019.

He was bought to help replace Tanguy Ndombele, who departed for Tottenham that summer. Aged 27 and supposedly approaching the peak of his career, hopes were high that he would reproduce the sort of form that had propelled Lille to a second place finish in Ligue 1 the previous season.

However, he struggled to find consistency during his first few months in Lyon, perhaps struggling to adapt to his new team mates, or perhaps his performances were simply a reflection of the general malaise around the club in the first half of the new season.

He’s an unspectacular player at the best of times, generally sitting in central midfield and playing a holding role. He rarely appears on the score sheet and doesn’t go in for eye-catching crunching tackles or tearing up and down the pitch between boxes.

He prefers to concentrate on a neat and tidy short passing game and is tactically disciplined, never straying too far from his assigned position, but in order to live up to his price tag, he probably ought to be contributing more creatively and chipping in more often with goals and assists.

Thiago Mendes arrived in Europe in 2017 when Lille picked him up for around €9 million from São Paulo and he spent two seasons in the Nord departement. He had previously been playing in the Brazilian Serie A for two and a half years with São Paulo, who had acquired him from Goiás at the start of 2015.

Goiás had been his first club and he broke into the first team in their 2011 Serie B campaign. The following year he helped them to promotion to Serie A as Serie B winners and enjoyed two subsequent Serie A seasons with the club, picking up a couple of Goiás state championships along the way before his first transfer.

*Not to be confused with Tiago Cardoso Mendes, the Portuguese international midfielder who played for Lyon between 2005 and 2007.

Date of Birth: 15/03/1992
Place of Birth: São Luís
Nationality: Brazilian
Joined OL: 03/07/2019

Previous teams:
Goiás (2011-14)
São Paulo (2015-17)
Lille (2017-19)

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Rudi García

Rudi García joined Olympique Lyonnais as manager in October 2019 with the team struggling for form in Ligue 1 following the short-lived tenure of Sylvinho.

The Brazilian had failed to make an impact during his eleven matches in charge, having himself replaced Bruno Genesio at the helm. The club had been playing some attractive football under Genesio but were defensively frail and fan unrest ultimately led to his departure at the end of the 2018-19 season.

García’s immediate remit was to restore some solidity to the team and oversee their return to the upper reaches of the Ligue 1 table. However, he was an unpopular choice with some sections of the support due to his previous links with rivals Olympique de Marseille and Saint-Étienne.

As a player, García was a midfielder and came through the youth ranks at Lille before featuring in the first team for several seasons in the mid-1980’s. He subsequently had spells at Caen and Martigues before injuries forced him to retire from playing aged 28 in 1992.

After completing his coaching badges, García landed his first managerial position when he succeeded John Toshack as manager of Saint-Étienne half way through the 2000-01 season, having previously been the Welshman’s assistant. However, he oversaw their relegation to the second division and was soon dismissed.

Date of Birth: 20/02/1964
Place of Birth: Nemours
Nationality: French
Joined OL: 14/10/2019

Previous teams managed:
Saint-Étienne (2001)
Dijon (2002-07)
Le Mans (2007-08)
Lille (2008-13)
Roma (2013-16)
Marseille (2016-19)

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García was handed his second chance at management a year later when he took the reins at Dijon in the National (France’s third tier) and immediately turned them from relegation strugglers into promotion chasers. He oversaw the club’s transformation from an amateur to professional outfit in 2004, the same year they reached the Coupe de France semi final and gained promotion to Ligue 2. Three seasons of finishes in the upper reaches of Ligue 2 cemented his reputation as a promising young coach and he moved on to Le Mans in Ligue 1 in 2007.

Under García Le Mans punched above their weight to finish ninth in Ligue 1 and when a managerial vacancy opened at his former club Lille in summer 2008 he jumped at the chance to return. It was over the next five seasons that he truly established himself as one of the leading lights in the new generation of French coaches and became a sought after name for big clubs across the continent.

His time at Lille was a resounding success, peaking with a league and cup double in the 2010-11 season whilst playing some attractive football with an entertaining side featuring a young Eden Hazard. Lille never finished outside the top six with García at the helm and although they couldn’t repeat their heroics of the championship season, García’s reputation was strong enough for AS Roma to come calling in summer 2013.

García’s first two seasons in the Italian capital were another success as he lead the Giallorossi to second place finishes in Serie A, albeit some way behind the champions Juventus on each occasion. This was a marked improvement for a club that had finished 6th, 7th and 6th again in the previous three seasons. However, despite his achievements, García hadn’t managed to buy himself much time with the club’s board and he was sacked in January 2013 with the club sitting in 5th place in the table after a mini slump.

His stock still high, García rebounded at Marseille early the following season and began reviving the fortunes of a club that had finished a lowly 13th in Ligue 1 in the previous campaign. He guided them to 5th place in the 2016-17 season and went one better the following year with an attacking side that also reached the Europa League final where they lost out to Atletico Madrid. However, the 2018-19 season saw a downturn in the team’s fortunes when they finished fifth, failing to qualify for Europe and were victims of a giant-killing in the Coupe de France. He left Marseille in the close season, hence his availability when Lyon needed an experienced manager at short notice to replace Sylvinho.

García oversaw a gradual improvement at OL during his first few months in charge prior to the Covid-19 suspension of football but the team remained inconsistent and had failed to break back into the European positions at the top of the table. He enjoyed more success in the cup competitions, taking OL into the knock-out phase of the Champions League, the semi-final of the Coupe de France and the final of the Coupe de la Ligue, but it remains to be seen whether he will be the coach who can re-establish the club as Paris Saint-Germain’s main domestic rivals.

Aside from the failure in his short-lived first managerial post at Saint-Étienne, García can be judged a success everywhere he has coached, although he hasn’t always managed to sustain that success over a long period of time at the bigger clubs. There’s no reason to believe that he can’t bring similar success to Lyon over the next few seasons, so the fans should forgive him his past with their rivals and allow his the time to demonstrate what he can achieve with the talented group of players that he has inherited.

Jason Denayer

Defender Jason Denayer moved from junior football at an academy in his native Belgium to join Manchester City’s setup aged 18 in 2013. He impressed during his first season in the youth team at City, but would never go on to make a first team appearance for the club. Instead he was farmed out on a series of season-long loan deals to gain experience over the next four years.

First came a sojourn in Glasgow with Celtic where he quickly established himself as part of the team that won the Premiership and League Cup double, contributing five goals along the way and also appearing in the Champions League and Europa League.

More major honours were to follow in the subsequent campaign, which he spent in Istanbul with Galatasaray, who he helped to a Turkish Cup final victory over Fenerbahçe in 2016. Denayer got his first taste of English Premier League action the following season on loan at Sunderland, but he was unable to prevent their eventual relegation.

Still surplus to requirements at Manchester City, Denayer rejoined Galatasaray for another season on loan in 2017-18 and helped them to a Turkish Süper Lig title. By the age of twenty-three he had won two league titles and two domestic cup competitions but had yet to make a first team appearance for a club that actually owned him. That was to change in August 2018 when he signed a permanent deal to take him to Olympique Lyonnais for €6.5 million.

The muscular centre-back soon became an integral part of the Lyon back line, his distinctive dreadlocks and combative playing style making him stand out on the pitch. He seems to have a knack of being in the right place at the right time to make crucial last ditch interceptions and blocks preventing almost certain goals and saving the team on many an occasion. He’s certainly not afraid to get stuck in where it hurts and put his body on the line for the cause of his club.

The son of a Belgian father and Congolese mother, Denayer represented Belgium at youth levels before making his international debut as a substitute away against Israel in March 2015 aged 19 and getting his first start away against France in June of the same year. He has won thirteen caps for the Red Devils at the time of writing.

Hopefully Denayer has a long and bright future ahead of him in Lyon but the club need to settle upon a regular defensive system and partner for him. At times he has been used alongside either Marcelo or Joachim Andersen at centre-back and it’s very much a case of Denayer plus one other in the middle when Lyon play a back four. Against stronger opposition they have often reverted to a back three playing Denayer with Marcelo and Andersen or sometimes Marçal. Denayer would probably benefit from some continuity of system to allow him to forge a partnership as the Lyon defence can often look like a collection of individuals rather than a cohesive unit.

Date of Birth: 28/06/1995
Place of Birth: Jette
Nationality: Belgian
Joined OL: 21/08/2018

Previous teams:
Manchester City (2014-18)
Celtic (loan) (2014-15)
Galatasaray (loan) (2015-16)
Sunderland (loan) (2016-17)
Galatasaray (loan) (2017-18)

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Anthony Lopes

Goalkeeper Anthony Lopes is a product of Olympique Lyonnais’ much vaunted youth system and has become a cult hero with the fans, having been born and raised in the suburbs of the city before breaking into the first team squad in the 2012-13 season aged twenty-two. He went on the establish himself as the first choice ‘keeper the following season and has been the undisputed number one at the club ever since, notching up over 300 appearances.

Lopes joined Lyon as a schoolboy and rose steadily through the ranks culminating in his debut away at Nice in a 3-1 Coupe de la Ligue defeat on the 31st of October 2012. His first clean sheet came on his European debut in a Europa League outing at home to Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona on the 6th of December that year and his league debut came towards the end of that season in a 1-1 draw against Saint-Étienne, with his first league clean sheet following a week later in a 3-0 win away at Nancy.

Born to Portuguese parents in France, he was eligible to represent both countries at international level but opted for Portugal and has represented them at every level from U17 up to the first team, for whom he made his debut on the 31st of March 2015 against Cape Verde conceding two first half goals in a 2-0 defeat in Estoril. His first international clean sheet came in a 2-0 friendly win away in Luxembourg later that year and he has accumulated seven international caps at the time of writing. Lopes was a member of the Portuguese squad that won Euro 2016 in France, and that’s his only major career honour to date although he didn’t get any playing time during the tournament.

Lopes has occasionally been linked with a move abroad to a bigger club in recent seasons but has thus far remained loyal to his boyhood club, having developed a strong rapport with the fans. However, he was given some stiff competition for the number one spot when Lyon signed Romanian international goalkeeper Ciprian Tătărușanu from Nantes at the start of the 2019-20 season. Lopes’ form has kept the Romanian firmly on the bench but perhaps Tătărușanu’s arrival could be paving the way for OL to cash in on another of their assets if they receive a big offer in the not too distant future.

Standing 6 ft tall, Lopes is relatively short for a modern day goalkeeper, but what he lacks in stature he more than makes up for in agility and athleticism. He is noted for his sharp reactions and camera-friendly flying saves, often going for the spectacular when a routine stop might be easier. Nonetheless, he has proved to be a dependable presence between the sticks and a worthy successor to recent mainstays in the Lyon goal such as Gregory Coupet and Hugo Lloris.

Date of Birth: 01/10/1990
Place of Birth: Givors
Nationality: Portuguese
Joined OL: 2000

Previous teams:
None

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Lyon Weekend Preview

Olympique Lyonnais Weekend Fixtures

  • Sat 28/09/2019 12:30 – OL v Nantes (Groupama Stadium)
  • Sat 28/09/2019 19:30 – Guingamp v OL Feminin

Lyon must look to end their disappointing sequence of draws and defeats when Nantes visit the Groupama Stadium on Saturday lunchtime. It’s now six matches (in all competitions) since Sylvinho’s team tasted victory. Only two of them have ended in defeat, but the habit of drawing games, especially from winning positions is proving costly and they find themselves four points worse off than this weekend’s opposition.

Nantes have made a fine start to the season under new manager Christian Gourcuff and they beat Rennes in midweek while Lyon were stumbling to a draw in Brest. They’ll provide a stern test for Lyon and I wouldn’t bet against yet another draw unless the Gones can produce a more cohesive performance.

The women’s team are away at Guingamp on Saturday evening, looking to maintain their one hundred per cent record and score enough goals to keep themselves top of the Ligue 1 table in the event of PSG also winning. Guingamp are currently sitting ninth in the table, with one win and two defeats to their name so far this season and I would expect Lyon to brush them aside in the usual manner, assuming there’s no hangover from their midweek Champions League exploits.

Bilbao Weekend Preview: 28th – 29th Sept 2019

Athletic Club Weekend Fixtures

  • Sat 28/09/2019 12:00 – Athletic Club v Valencia (San Mamés)
  • Sat 28/09/2019 17:30 – Bilbao Athletic v Osasuna B (Estadio de Lezama 2)
  • Sun 29/09/2019 15:00 – Athletic Club Femenino v Deportivo Abanca(Estadio de Lezama 2)

Athletic Club face Valencia in the early kick off on Saturday with the chance to provisionally go back to the top of the La Liga table if they can get a win and maintain their 100% home record so far this season. They will have high hopes of achieving that as the visitors are currently struggling at 13th in the table and have yet to pick up a point on their travels in the league, with two defeats at Celta and Barcelona to date.

The reserves, currently in third place in the Segunda Division B, could also end the weekend at the top of the table, but they face a tough assignment on Saturday evening against an Osasuna team who are only a point behind them. Bilbao Athletic go into the game on the back of three wins and three clean sheets in a row, so they ought to be full of confidence.

The Athletic Club women’s team are looking to get back to winning ways against high-flying Deportivo Abanca on Sunday afternoon, having lost to Valencia last time out in the Primera Iberdrola. They have one win and just the three points to show from their three opening fixtures, so they really need a win here to kick-start their league campaign.

United Weekend Preview: 27th – 30th Sept 2019

Manchester United Weekend Fixtures

  • Fri 27/09/2019 19:00 – Man Utd U23 v Norwich City
  • Sat 28/09/2019 12:00 – Man Utd U18 V Leicester City (Aon Training Complex)
  • Sat 28/09/2019 12:00 – Man Utd Women v Liverpool (Leigh Sports Village)
  • Mon 30/09/2019 20:00 – Manchester United v Arsenal (Old Trafford)

Manchester United host Arsenal at Old Trafford live on Sky Sports on Monday night with United needing a win to draw level with the Gunners on eleven points. The London club are currently sitting fourth in the table, four places above United, who need to get back to winning ways following last weekend’s reversal at West Ham. It’s a chance for United to prove that they can compete for a top four place this season and strike a blow against one of their direct rivals. A defeat here could see United drop into the bottom half of the table and signal a long, hard season ahead.

The Under 23 team open the weekend’s fixtures for United with a home match against Norwich City on Friday evening. The Canaries are only one place off the bottom of the Premier League 2 Division 2 table and a win here for United could see the Red Devils go level with West Ham at the top of the table.

The Under 18 team host Leicester City on Saturday lunchtime in the U18 Premier League Cup and the women’s team play simultaneously against Liverpool in their third Women’s Super League fixture of the season. Both teams are looking for their first points and goals of the campaign, having both lost 1-0 on each of their first two outings.

Rugby Coach Sent Home

A Wales rugby coach, named Rob Howley, has been sent home from the world cup to assist in an investigation surrounding suspected betting infringements. Professional players and coaches are banned from betting on rugby matches and Howley has been provisionally suspended from all rugby activity pending the outcome of the investigation. If found guilty of a serious offence, he could face a life ban from the game.

Dennis retains Time Trial Title

Australian cyclist Rohan Dennis retained his men’s individual time trial world championship title with an emphatic victory on the 54 km route from Northallerton to Harrogate in Yorkshire. He completed the course in 1:05:05 to finish more than a minute ahead of second placed Belgian prodigy Remco Evenepoel. Italy’s Filippo Ganna took the bronze medal a minute and fifty five seconds back in third place.

It was Dennis’ first outing since he mysteriously abandoned the Tour de France in July just before the time trial stage, and he proved to the world that he’s very much still the dominant force in this discipline. Alex Dowsett was Britain’s best placed finisher, coming in fifth two minutes and one second down on Dennis.