Khalis Merah is a graduate from the esteemed Olympique Lyonnais academy. Following in the footsteps of numerous stars to have emerged from their ranks over the years, he hopes to be the latest ‘Gone‘ to make a name for himself. The midfielder made his first team debut in the opening game of the 2025-26 season and looks to have a bright future ahead of him.
Merah was born in 2007 in Meyzieu, around 13 km east of Lyon city centre. Some five years later, construction work began on a new stadium at a nearby site between Meyzieu and neighbouring Décines-Charpieu. As the youngster watched the stadium slowly take shape, he and his team mates at US Meyzieu dared to dream that they might one day play there.
Shortly before his ninth birthday, the shiny new Groupama Stadium opened and Olympique Lyonnais moved in. By this time, Merah had already developed into a very promising young player and news of his talent had reached the scouting department at OL. They recruited him into their academy the following summer and his dream came a step closer.
Youth football with Lyon and France
Jump forward another seven years and things are still progressing well. In March 2023, just twelve days after his 16th birthday, Khalis Merah made his debut for the France U-16 team. He played in two friendlies against the Luxembourg U-16s at Clairefontaine, winning the first 1-0 and drawing the second 1-1.
The following season, Merah started to feature in the Lyon U-19 team playing in the Championnat National U19 and Coupe Gambardella. He soon became a regular starter and was even entrusted with the captain’s armband. He added goals to his game in the 2024-25 season with the U-19s, scoring five times in the Championnat National U19 and in February 2025, on his 18th birthday, he was offered and signed a professional contract with Lyon.
At the end of that season, he made his debut for the Lyon reserve team playing in the Championnat National 3, the fifth tier of the French football pyramid. Technically gifted but physically frail, it was a big step up and Lyon lost all four matches in which he featured. However, he has the football intelligence to find pockets of space and lose his markers, thus minimising the number of physical duels that he has to face during a game.
Merah obviously caught the eye of Lyon first team coach Paulo Fonseca, because he was promoted to the first team squad ahead of the 2025-26 campaign and was included in the party that travelled to the training camp in Austria. He impressed during a series of pre-season friendlies and earned a place on the bench for the opening Ligue 1 game of the season away at Lens.
Debut delight
His first team debut came in that match at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis on the 16th of August 2025. With Lyon leading 1-0, he came off the bench in the 66th minute to replace Saël Kumbedi and occupy a position on the right side of the front three. It took him a while to settle into the frenetic pace of the game, but once he’d had a few touches of the ball he stated to gain confidence and look at home at this level.
As full time approached and Lyon clung onto their lead, he proved to be a valuable outlet, dropping off his marker to receive balls out from the defence and launch counter attacks. Lyon held on through six minutes of stoppage time to make it a winning start to life in Ligue 1 for Khalis Merah. It may yet be some time until he commands a starting place in the Lyon XI, but he’s already shown that he can make a valuable contribution from the bench and has a bright future ahead of him.
It surely won’t be long until the stadium that he saw being built becomes the stage where his precocious talent will be on show. And who knows, maybe he’ll follow in the footsteps of some of the illustrious Franco-Algerian prodigies to have emerged from the fabled Lyon youth system in recent years and make it to the very top. The likes of Karim Benzema, Nabil Fekir and Rayan Cherki have blazed a trail for him to follow.