When Lyon signed the seventeen year old prospect Saël Kumbedi from Le Havre for €1 million in the summer of 2022, he was very much seen as one for the future. At the time, he only had 219 minutes of first team action in Ligue 2 to his name. However, the young right-back made such […]
Tag: Profile
Skelly Alvero – Player Profile
Central midfielder Skelly Alvero joined Olympique Lyonnais from Sochaux for €4 million in the summer transfer window of 2023. Aged just twenty-one, and with only one full season of first team experience in Ligue 2 behind him, Alvero jumped at the chance to step up a division and sign a five year contract with Lyon. […]
Clinton Mata – Player Profile
Olympique Lyonnais signed the thirty-year-old Angolan defender Clinton Mata from Club Brugge for €5 million in the summer of 2023. It was a first move abroad for the right-back, who had been born and raised in Belgium and had spent the entirety of his career thus far playing in the Belgian league system. Mata will […]
Mama Baldé – Player Profile
Mama Samba Baldé was born in Bissau, the capital of the former Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, but he moved to Portugal aged six and played his junior football in the youth teams of Sintrense, from the historic town of Sintra, not far from Lisbon. He was picked up by Sporting Clube in […]
Nicolás Tagliafico – Player Profile
In December 2022, Nicolás Tagliafico became only the second Olympique Lyonnais player to win the FIFA World Cup whilst at the club, following in the footsteps of Nabil Fekir in 2018. The Argentina left-back was an integral part of his country’s World Cup winning campaign in Qatar, featuring in all but one of their matches, […]
Johann Lepenant – Player Profile
Johann Lepenant is a diminutive, right-footed, defensive midfielder, who was signed by Olympique Lyonnais from Stade Malherbe Caen for €4.25 million in July 2022, aged just nineteen. Born in in the coastal town of Granville, Normandy, Lepenant began his journey in the youth ranks of local club US Granville, where his father was one of […]
Ernest Nuamah – Player Profile
Teen prodigy Ernest Nuamah is a graduate of the Right To Dream academy in his native Ghana, which is part of an ownership group that includes Danish Superliga club FC Nordsjælland, and his potential was such that he was fast-tracked into their squad aged just eighteen in early 2022. A fast, tricky and lively forward, who […]
Ainsley Maitland-Niles – Player Profile
Versatile midfielder-cum-right-back Ainsley Maitland-Niles joined Lyon in the summer of 2023 on a free transfer following the expiration of his contract at Arsenal. The Londoner had been with the Gunners for the best part of two decades since joining them as a schoolboy, but had never really established himself as a first team regular. Finally, […]
Corentin Tolisso
Corentin Tolisso is a dynamic and versatile midfielder who is best known for winning the FIFA World Cup with France in 2018, and for his club career with Bayern Munich and Olympique Lyonnais. Tolisso, son of a Togolese immigrant, hails from the small town of Tarare in the Rhône department, some twenty-eight miles outside Lyon, […]
Rémy Riou
Rémy Riou joined Lyon in the summer of 2022 on a free transfer from Ligue 2 club Caen, as cover for first choice goalkeeper Anthony Lopes. Riou had been the regular starter in goal for the Normandy based club over the previous three seasons but, approaching his thirty-fifth birthday, he was now prepared to settle […]