Latest Posts

Paul Akouokou – Player Profile

Paul Akouokou, who simply bears the moniker ‘Paul’ on the back of his Lyon shirt, is a defensive midfielder who joined the club from Real Betis for a fee of €3 million in September 2023. The twenty-six year old is an Ivory Coast international with four caps to his name and has previously played in Finland and Israel.

Edgar Paul Akouokou, to give him his full name, was born in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast in December 1997. A talented junior, he decided to move abroad to pursue his career as a footballer and his first staging post was at Majestic FC in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

Based in the capital, Ouagadougou, Majestic were competing in Ligue 1, the top flight of Burkinabé football. They were a mid to lower half of the table side at the time and they finished the 2015-16 season placed eleventh out of sixteen teams in the table. Akouokou departed before the end of that campaign to join Ekenäs IF in Finland.

From tropical to Nordic climes

Arriving in Ekenäs, a small town of some 14,000 people near Finland’s southern tip, aged just eighteen, Akouokou had to adapt quickly to his new surroundings. He got there in time for the start of the 2016 Ykkönen season, the second level of Finland’s football pyramid, and was quickly integrated into the first team squad.

Akouokou soon established himself as a regular starter at EIF and played a major part in helping them to avoid relegation as they finished eighth in the ten team division. In January 2017, during Finland’s long winter break, Akouokou travelled to France for a trial with Ligue 1 club SCO Angers. However, he failed to sufficiently impress the Angevin coaching staff and returned to EIF for the start of the 2017 Ykkönen campaign.

As Akouokou grew in stature and became ever more influential on the pitch, he began to finally get noticed by scouts from further afield. Two thirds of the way through his second season in Ekenäs, with EIF sitting in sixth place in the table, an offer came in to take him on loan to Beitar Jerusalem in Israel. Unfortunately, Akouokou was sent off in what turned out to be his farewell appearance for EIF, for two yellow cards in the space of two second half minutes in a 4-0 defeat away to TPS.

To Andalusia via The Levant

Akouokou was largely restricted to substitute appearances during his first few months at Beitar as the club challenged near the top of the Israeli Premier League table in the 2017-18 season. At the end of January they decided to send him out on loan to Hapoel Rishon LeZion in the second tier Liga Leumit. He got much more playing time there as Hapoel finished the regular season in fourth place but just missed out on promotion via the play-offs.

In summer 2018, he moved on again. This time the destination was Spain and specifically Seville, where he joined Real Betis. He spent his first two seasons in Spain playing for Betis Deportivo, the club’s reserve team competing in the regionalised Tercera División. They finished sixth in the Western Andalusia table in his first season there but kicked on in 2019-20 to win the title and then gain promotion to the Segunda División B via the play-offs.

His solid performances for the reserves saw him promoted to the Real Betis first team squad for the 2020-21 La Liga campaign. He became the first Ivorian to represent the club, but never quite managed to establish himself as a regular during his three full seasons with the first team. He did accumulate 44 appearances across all competitions and picked up a Copa del Rey winner’s medal in 2022. He didn’t actually make it off the bench during the final (a penalty shoot-out win against Valencia) but he had played earlier in the competition.

International recognition and a new start in France

It was in March 2022, aged twenty-four, that Paul Akouokou received his first call-up to the Ivory Coast national team. He made his debut as a late substitute against France in a 2-1 friendly defeat in Marseille and got on for the final minute of another friendly against England at Wembley four days later. Two further substitute appearances came in the closing stages of Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches the following June, but he hasn’t been involved with the squad since then.

It was reportedly his Betis team mate Nabil Fekir, a former Lyon player, who recommended Paul Akouokou to Lyon in the summer of 2023. Having been a fringe player for long enough, he was looking to move on in search of more regular football. He’ll be hoping that the move to France can help to reignite his career, although it has been a slow start for him at Lyon with just four starts and two substitute appearances in the first half of this season and he’s yet to complete a full ninety minutes for the club.

Duje Caleta-Car – Player Profile

Duje Ćaleta-Car joined Lyon from Southampton on a season-long loan in August 2023 following the English club’s relegation from the Premier League. Lyon paid a loan fee of €1.54 million to secure the Croatian international centre-back’s services for the year.

Lyon were desperately in need of reinforcements in that department following the sale of Castello Lukeba to RB Leipzig, and the twenty-six year old Ćaleta-Car, with his extensive top level experience, seemed to fit the bill. He was already familiar with Ligue 1, having spent four seasons with Lyon’s bitter rivals Marseille, and he would have the chance to pair up with his Croatia team mate Dejan Lovren in defence.

Difficult start at Lyon

Erstwhile Lyon manager Laurent Blanc threw Ćaleta-Car straight into the starting line-up for his debut on the opening day of the 2023-24 season, a 2-1 defeat to Strasbourg at the Stade de la Meinau. However, Lovren’s absence through injury meant that Blanc was unable to align his two Croatian defenders in tandem prior to his sacking after the 4-1 defeat to PSG on matchday four.

Ćaleta-Car was paired with Sinaly Diomandé during those opening four fixtures, which brought three defeats and a draw. Having been ever-present under Blanc, he then didn’t feature in the team at all during the entirety of Italian manager Fabio Grosso’s disastrous seven-game tenure. Grosso’s replacement, Pierre Sage, immediately brought Ćaleta-Car back into the fold when he was appointed as caretaker manager at the end of November 2023 and he was used as a late substitute in defeats at Lens and Marseille.

Sage Decision

By now, Dejan Lovren was fit again and Sage chose to start the two Croatians together for the first time in the home match against Toulouse on the tenth of December with Lyon sitting rock bottom of the Ligue 1 table. He also made a tactical switch to three at the back, with Lovren and O’Brien aligned either side of Ćaleta-Car in the back line. It was this change of personnel and formation that heralded an upturn in Lyon’s fortunes and they beat Toulouse 3-0 before sneaking a 1-0 win at Monaco with the same system five days later.

Ćaleta-Car has played alongside Lovren during many of his twenty-three appearances for the Croatia national team, so it makes sense that they should perform well together at club level. Hopefully he has now got over his indifferent start to his time at Lyon and can go on to be part of a solid defensive unit during the second half of the season. Then Lyon will have to decide if they want to try and purchase him outright or allow him to return to his parent club. His future may depend on whether or not Southampton gain promotion back into the Premier League.

If they’re good enough, they’re old enough. Or not!

Duje Ćaleta-Car began his career with his hometown club, Šibenik, and was something of a teen prodigy, making his first team debut aged just fifteen in the Druga HNL (Croatia’s second division). Unfortunately for him and his club, the league rules stipulated that players must be at least sixteen years old to play in the competition, so Šibenik were docked a point on the very first day of the season.

The rest of that 2012–13 season panned out pretty well for the youthful Ćaleta-Car on the pitch. He was called into the Croatia U-17 squad and made seventeen appearances for Šibenik as they finished fourth in the table. Off-field, things weren’t shaping up so well. Šibenik had fallen into financial difficulties and were relegated administratively by the football authorities at the end of the season.

Unable to hold onto their rising star, Šibenik were forced to offload him in summer 2013 and he made the move north to Pasching in Austria. Ćaleta-Car adapted well to his new surroundings and helped his new club to a second place finish in the Regionalliga Central, one of three regionalised third tier leagues in the Austrian football pyramid.

By now, he was attracting the attention of scouts from larger clubs and Red Bull Salzburg moved to secure his signature before loaning him out to FC Liefering in Austria’s second tier. However, it wasn’t long before they decided he was ready for Bundesliga action and recalled him to their own squad.

Hitting the big time

Duje Ćaleta-Car enjoyed three and a half glittering seasons with RB Salzburg and picked up four Austrian titles along the way. He also lifted the cup on three occasions and was selected in the Austrian Bundesliga Team of the Year for the 2017-18 season.

He was also selected for Croatia’s World Cup squad that summer and made his international debut in a pre-tournament warm-up match against Brazil at Anfield. Duje Ćaleta-Car only featured once in the finals themselves, in a Group D victory over Iceland, but picked up a silver medal as Croatia reached the final, losing 4-2 to France in Moscow. That achievement saw Ćaleta-Car and the rest of the Croatia squad awarded the Order of Duke Branimir by Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović.

Five days after the World Cup final, Olympique de Marseille shelled out €19 million to take the twenty-one year old Ćaleta-Car to Provence. He had played against the French club in the Europa League semi-finals a couple of months earlier and had obviously caught their eye. He spent four seasons at Marseille, finishing fifth, second, fifth and second again in Ligue 1, but failed to lift any silverware.

Ćaleta-Car moved on again in the summer of 2022, swapping the French south coast for the English version when he joined Southampton for €8 million. It was a difficult season for the Saints. They finished bottom of the table with just 25 points and Ćaleta-Car was a peripheral figure, making only thirteen league appearances. He also lost his place in the Croatia squad and missed out on World Cup 2022. Therefore, he arrived a Lyon this summer looking to arrest a gradual downturn in his career trajectory and get back to performing at the top level.

Walkers Christmas Pudding crisps review

Walkers Christmas Pudding flavour crisps

These Walkers Christmas pudding flavour crisps are described as ‘sweet & spiced’ on the packet, as you’d expect for something claiming to replicate the taste of that traditional Christmas dessert. Upon unsealing the bag, a quick sniff inside reveals an indistinct but mildly festive aroma and the initial taste sensation is of a sweetness that you wouldn’t normally expect, or indeed welcome, in a fried potato snack if you weren’t forewarned.

That sweetness soon blends with the mix of spices to create a fairly plausible simulation of the taste of a Christmas pud. I think it’s a pretty decent effort at recreating that flavour in crisp form. They’re nice enough to eat, although the experience has reaffirmed my opinion that I prefer my potato snacks savoury. I just don’t think there’s a sweet-flavoured-crisp shaped gap in my snacking regime. If I am looking for something sweet to nibble on at this time of the year then there are plenty of things that would be ahead of these crisps in the queue.

I’m not sure they’re going to catch on and I can’t see myself buying them again aside from this once for novelty value as there are far superior flavours out there. I guess they’re only really meant as a novelty for the festive season anyway, so it will be interesting to see if they reappear on the market in future years or prove to be a one-off. They’re nice enough, but they can’t compete with either a real Christmas pudding or with savoury crisp flavours.

  • Pack weight: 24g
  • Multipack size: 5 packets
  • Multipack price: £1.25 (Iceland, 18/12/23)
  • Verdict: two out of five2/5
Nutritional Values (per 100g)
Energy1991KJ / 475kcal
Fat21g
of which saturates1.7g
Carbohydrate64g
of which sugars5g
Fibre3.9g
Protein6.8g
Salt0.57g
Ingredients

Potatoes, Sunflower Oil, Christmas Pudding Flavour [Sugar, Salt, Flavourings, Mixed Spices (Clove Powder, Cinnamon Powder, Ginger Powder, Nutmeg Powder), Colour (Ammonia Caramel), Acid (Citric Acid)].

Diego Moreira – Player Profile

Diego Moreira, or, to give him his full name, Diego Manuel Jadon da Silva Moreira, is a winger who primarily operates down the left flank. He is currently on a season-long loan at Olympique Lyonnais from his parent club, Chelsea.

Despite his tender years (he only turned nineteen in August), he has already been on the books of four major European clubs in four different countries: Standard Liège, Benfica, Chelsea and now Lyon. However, he had only made a total of three first team appearances in senior football before moving to France at the start of September 2023.

Football genes on both sides of the family

Moreira has an interesting, multi-cultural background and is qualified to represent four countries in international football. The first is his native Belgium. He was born in Liège in 2004 whilst his father, Almami Moreira was playing for local club Standard Liège in the Belgian First Division.

His father was an accomplished midfielder who began his professional career at Boavista before spending four seasons in Liège, interrupted by a loan spell with Hamburger SV. He subsequently embarked on an itinerant career path taking him to Russia, Serbia, China, Spain and back to Portugal. Having represented Portugal at youth level, he went on to earn six international caps for his native Guinea-Bissau. It’s through him that Moreira Jr qualifies for both Guinea-Bissau and Portugal.

Diego Moreira also benefits from a healthy dose of footballing genes on his mother’s side. His maternal grandfather was a German midfielder called Helmut Graf, who also played for Standard Liège between 1976 and 1982. That ancestry qualifies Moreira Jr to represent Germany but he has pledged his own allegiance to Portugal for now and has been involved with their national team setup since 2019 when he first integrated the Under-15 squad.

He has moved up through the age groups and is now bouncing between the Portuguese U-20 and U-21 squads. He was involved in some UEFA Euro U-21 qualifying matches earlier this year but has more recently featured in the European U-20 Elite League and played in the 2-1 win against England at Stadium MK in October.

Early move to Portugal

Having spent his formative years in the Standard Liège youth system, Moreira decamped to Lisbon in August 2020 to join Benfica. He really began to make a name for himself playing in the UEFA Youth League in the 2021-22 season. He scored three goals and provided several assists as Benfica tore through the competition in swashbuckling style to lift the trophy for the first time in their history.

Benfica also lifted the Campeonato Nacional de Juniores in 2021-22 (the top-level U-19 competition in Portuguese football) and went on to conquer the inaugural Under-20 Intercontinental Cup, beating the 2022 U-20 Copa Libertadores winners, Peñarol of Uruguay, 1-0 in the final at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo with Moreira playing the full ninety minutes.

At the end of that highly successful season with the juniors, Moreira was handed a debut for the Benfica first team in the final match of the season away at Paços de Ferreira. He entered the fray for his senior debut as a 68th minute substitute for João Mário as Benfica saw out a 2-0 win in front of 5,635 supporters at the Estádio Capital do Móvel.

However, that wasn’t to prove the platform for a breakthrough into the first team squad for the 2022-23 campaign. In fact, Moreira would only go on to play one further minute for Benfica, as a late substitute in a UEFA Champions League qualifier against FC Midtjylland in August 2022. His refusal to sign a new contract that summer saw him ostracised from the first team squad and he spent the season languishing in the B team and the Under-23s.

Brief interlude at Chelsea

When his contract expired in the summer of 2023, Moreira signed for Chelsea on a free transfer. However, his initial stay in west London was a brief one. He made a couple of appearances for the U-21 team in the Premier League 2 in August before his senior Chelsea debut came in the EFL Cup Second Round against AFC Wimbledon. He started on the left side of a front three at Stamford Bridge but was hauled off at half time to be replaced by Nicolas Jackson with Chelsea struggling at 1-1 and had to watch from the bench as his team mates completed a 2-1 win.

There was one further Chelsea U-21 appearance on the first of September before he signed his loan deal with Lyon later that same evening, just minutes before the summer transfer window slammed shut. It was hoped that he could help fill the gap in the Lyon front-line that was created by the recent sale of Bradley Barcola to PSG.

Difficult start at Lyon

So far, he hasn’t had much of an impact on Lyon’s battle against relegation from Ligue 1. He has only featured for a total of 208 minutes in the three months since he joined the club and has yet to contribute any goals or assists. He came off the bench for his debut in a 0-0 draw against Le Havre in mid-September and got his first start in the following match, a 1-0 defeat at Brest.

Moreira didn’t appear again until mid-November when he was a late substitute in a 2-0 home defeat to Lille. He did start the following two games, defeats on the road at Lens and Marseille, but was substituted in both of them.

His lack of experience is sometimes evident in his play and he’s yet to gel with his new team mates, often opting to dribble or shoot rather than pass when the opportunity arises. He’ll need to mature quickly and find some end product if he’s to play a significant role in helping to preserve Lyon’s Ligue 1 status. Perhaps for now his best role is as an option from the bench.

Mahamadou Diawara – Player Profile

Mahamadou Diawara is a French midfielder of Malian descent who primarily plays a roving ‘box-to-box’ role. He signed for Lyon as a free agent in June 2023 having spent the previous five years on the books of Paris Saint-Germain.

The eighteen-year-old was disappointed to only be offered a trainee contract by the Parisian club last summer, having impressed in the PSG youth setup, so he rejected their proposal and left to further his career elsewhere. Lyon made a quick move to capture his signature and Diawara was happy to relaunch his career in the Rhône.

Fast-tracked to the first team

Diawara was signed as one for the future and was expected to spend most of his first season in Lyon playing for the reserve team in the Championnat National 3 Groupe K. Indeed, that’s where he made his club debut, playing in central midfield in a 4-3 win against Clermont Foot B at the Groupama OL Academy ground under the watchful tutelage of former Lyon midfielder Gueida Fofana.

However, Diawara only made two further appearances for the reserves, in draws against Valence and Vaulx-en-Velin, before he was called up to bolster the struggling first team squad in Ligue 1 under recently appointed manager Fabio Grosso. He was thrown straight into the starting XI against Lorient at the Groupama Stadium on the 10th of August and played for sixty minutes before has was replaced in midfield by Corentin Tolisso with Lyon leading 3-2. Unfortunately they couldn’t hold on after he was substituted and they ended up drawing 3-3.

Diawara has featured in every Lyon Ligue 1 fixture since then, although he is yet to complete ninety minutes. He was used as a substitute in the home defeat to Clermont Foot and the away win at Rennes either side of his second start in the home draw against Metz. His third start came in the 2-0 home defeat to Lille, but he was withdrawn at half time as Grosso continued to chop and change his team. The Italian was relieved of his position as Lyon manager following that match, so it remains to be seen whether his successor will continue to experiment with Diawara or will revert to more experienced players for the battle against relegation.

International recognition

Mahamadou Diawara received his first call-up to the French U-19 national team squad in November 2023 and he featured in all three of their Euro U-19 Championship qualifiers during that international break. His debut came as a late substitute in a 2-0 win against Estonia at the Stade de la Source in Orléans. He got a few more minutes in a 1-0 win over Iceland at the same venue a few days later and then played the full ninety away at Denmark as Bernard Diomède’s selection succumbed to a 2-1 defeat.

During his final season with PSG, Diawara made sixteen appearances for the Paris Saint-Germain U-19 team in their Championnat National U-19 campaign. They finished second, behind Lens in their regionalised league but made it through to the final of the national play-offs where they lost 2-1 to Nantes, with Diawara coming off the bench to replace Naoufel El Hannach for the last eight minutes. Diawara also appeared as a substitute in three of PSG’s UEFA Youth League group stage matches, against Maccabi Haifa and Benfica (twice).

Ultimately, his future lay away from the capital and his path to the first team at PSG would certainly have been more arduous that it has proved at Lyon, where he’s already getting opportunities. He looks like a very promising young prospect and it will be interesting to watch how he develops as he matures.

Bilbao and Lyon top big five leagues for home-grown players

The Football Observatory at the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) has published a world ranking of football clubs showing which have fielded the most home-grown players in domestic league matches so far this season. The results make for very interesting reading from the perspective of this website because Athletic Club and Olympique Lyonnais are top of the table as far as Europe’s ‘Big 5’ leagues are concerned.

In fact, Athletic Club are way out ahead of everyone else. That’s in no small part due to their cantera policy of signing only players who were born or trained at youth level in the Basque Country. 68.9% of all their player minutes so far this season have been from club-trained players.

CIES uses the UEFA definition of ‘club-trained’ meaning that a player must have been at the club for at least three years between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. Athletic Club have fielded fourteen players who meet that criteria so far this season: Unai Simón, Vivian, Paredes, Yeray, Imanol, Sancet, Ruiz de Galarreta, Prados, Unai Gómez, Iñaki Williams, Muniain, Nico Williams, Guruzeta and Villalibre.

Olympique Lyonnais may be struggling in Ligue 1 so far this season, but the fact that they’re doing so with a large cohort of home-grown players shows that there’s hope for the future and that the club’s esteemed academy is still regularly feeding into the first team squad. They have used nine ‘club-trained’ players so far this season, for a total of 45.6% of their combined minutes played. That figure puts them just ahead of third placed Real Sociedad in the ranking.

Basques dominating the top spots

The table is yet more proof, if it were ever needed, that the Basque Country is a veritable hotbed of football talent. Not only are Athletic Club and Real Sociedad in the top three, but Osasuna are sixth meaning that clubs from the region occupy half of the top six places. The screenshot below shows the top clubs in the ranking:

CIES ranking of Big 5 league teams by % minutes played by club trained players in 2023-24.
CIES ranking of Big 5 league teams by % minutes played by club trained players in 2023-24.

There’s also encouraging news for Manchester United. They have made the top twenty in the ranking, having fielded five ‘club-trained’ players so for this campaign for 20.4% of their total playing minutes. That puts them second in terms of English Premier League clubs, not far behind Arsenal.

You can find the CIES post with the full statistics here on their excellent website.

North Macedonia 1-1 England

England concluded their UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying campaign with a 1-1 draw against North Macedonia in front of 27,982 fans at the Toše Proeski National Arena in Skopje. It was a fairly insipid performance blighted by some poor refereeing but the result was of little importance since England had already secured top spot in Group C.

There were a few changes to the England team following Friday night’s 2-0 win over Malta. Notably, Manchester City’s eighteen year old starlet Rico Lewis was handed a debut at left-back and Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins was given a chance to make an impression up front.

England started reasonably well and almost opened the scoring through Declan Rice when the Arsenal midfielder’s shot beat the ‘keeper but came back off the post. However, they were affording chances to the North Macedonians and were lucky not to concede a penalty when Harry Maguire carelessly gave the ball away and then clattered into Elmas inside the box.

VAR Controversy

North Macedonia were awarded a penalty shortly before half-time, but it was a highly controversial one. Lewis was the unfortunate fall-guy on the end of a poor VAR decision. He had jumped and headed the ball cleanly away from danger but a flailing hand brushed the face on the on-rushing North Macedonian striker Bojan Miovski, who went down clasping his head.

Pickford produced a fine save to deny Enis Bardhi from the spot, but he could only push the ball back out in front of the goal and Bardhi made no mistake with the rebound to give the Macedonians the lead going into the interval.

England thought they had equalised within a couple of minutes of the restart when Saka’s cross was slotted home by Jack Grealish at the far post, but the Manchester City winger was just offside. Inexplicably, a three minute delay to proceedings was required for the VAR officials to arrive at what looked like a fairly clear-cut decision.

Harry Kane was introduced to replace the ineffective Watkins just before the hour mark as England manager Gareth Southgate decided to try and force the issue. They Bayern Munich striker had an instant impact, winning a header from a corner that deflected off Atanasov and into the net for an own goal.

England continued to push for a winner, and Rashford, Phillips and Palmer were brought on with six minutes to go in order to freshen things up but the North Macedonian defence held firm and the game finished a goal apiece.

Heading for the finals in Germany

England topped Group C with twenty points and an unbeaten record of six wins and two draws from their eight qualifying matches, and a goal difference of plus eighteen. They were six points clear of Italy and Ukraine who played out a goalless draw in Germany on the same evening, meaning that the Italians snuck through by the skin of their teeth. England will go into the first pot of seeds for the finals draw that takes place on the 2nd of December.

Wins for Bilbao Athletic and Basconia

Bilbao Athletic earned a hard-fought 1-0 away win against CD Calahorra in their Segunda Federación Group 2 clash on Sunday. It was the tenth consecutive victory for Carlos Gurpegui’s team and it leaves them six points clear of second placed Tudelano at the top of the table after twelve games of the 2023-34 season.

Calahorra, from the La Rioja region about an hour and forty-five minutes drive from Bilbao, are a mid-table side and they frustrated the visitors for almost an hour before Urko Izeta broke the deadlock and scored what turned out to be the only goal of the game.

Next weekend Bilbao Athletic welcome Tudelano to Lezama for a top-of-the-table crunch match and the chance to deal a direct blow to their closest title rivals.

Earlier in the day, CD Basconia had beaten SD Leioa 3-1 at home in their Tercera Federación Group 4 fixture. The fell behind early on but equalised just before half time through Aimar Vicandi. Vicandi got his second of the game with ten minutes remaining to give Basconia the lead and Ieltxu García clinched it with the third in the 87th minute.

Basconia are now fifth in the table on twenty points after eleven games. They are six points behind the league leaders, CD Vitoria and they face a tough looking away trip to CD Deusto next weekend.

OL U19 3-1 Pagny-sur-Moselle

Jérémie Bréchet’s Olympique Lyonnais Under-19 team got back to winning ways on Sunday with a 3-1 victory at home to struggling AS Pagny-sur-Moselle at their OL Academy ground in Meyzieu.

After a goalless first half, it was Lyon who finally managed to force the issue and break the deadlock when Erawan Garnier was fouled in the box and Bryan Meyo converted from twelve yards.

However, Pagny fought back well and grabbed a 65th minute equaliser to set up a tense final twenty-five minutes during which both sides threatened to take the three points.

In the end, it was Lyon who prevailed with a pair of late goals from Emerson Pedro Vanga and Oliver Mvouama, the latter scoring in added time to wrap things up. Having lost three on the bounce, it was an important result for Lyon and was especially impressive considering that the team contained several debutants.

Lyon now sit in second place in the 2023-24 Championnat National U19 Group B table, but are still a massive eleven points behind runaway leaders Auxerre after twelve games of the season. Next weekend, Bréchet’s squad must make the trip up to Strasbourg, who sit just three points behind them in the table.

England U19 beat Japan in Marbella

Simon Rusk’s England U19 team gained a second win in as many matches when then narrowly beat Japan in Marbella on Saturday. They had recorded an emphatic 6-0 victory over Romania three days earlier but it was a much tighter affair this time out as they beat the Japanese youngsters by the odd goal in five.

It was a strong England line-up featuring Manchester United’s highly rated central midfielder Kobbie Mainoo wearing the number ten shirt, and his United team mate Elyh Harrison was on the bench.

England opened the scoring in the 13th minute with a penalty converted by Manchester City’s Jacob Wright after Millwall winger Romain Esse had been brought down. The lead was doubled just after the half hour mark with a goal from Tottenham forward Will Lankshear.

England had had much the better of the first period but Japan came out for the second half with renewed vigour and stormed back into the match with a quickfire pair of strikes from Shiogai Kento not long after the restart.

Mainoo was substituted for Jamie Donley in the 76th minute and it was the newly introduced Spurs forward who eventually grabbed the winner, firing home in the last minute of normal time to seal a 3-2 victory.

England U19 conclude their mini tour with a match against Mexico on Tuesday (21st November), which kicks off at 17:00 GMT.