In the midst of losing spiral
on
almost all fronts, OL (only 13th in Ligue 1) will challenge PSG on Sunday (8.45 p.m.).
While the winter transfer window opened a week ago, the departure of Juninho allowed Bruno Cheyrou to regain the management of the recruitment cell, this time without a sports director above him.
20 Minutes
looks at the organization of this sparse sector, despite the reinforcement on Wednesday of a fourth scout, the Swiss Stéphane Henchoz.
“I don't want to be in a fictitious job role. "Often mocked on social networks about his real position since his arrival at OL in May 2020, and sidelined from the male pole since last summer at the request of Juninho, Bruno Cheyrou has just been promoted with an astonishing triple cap in Lyon. The departure of the Brazilian sports director, recorded well before the shock against PSG on Sunday (8:45 p.m.), allows him to once again become director of recruitment for boys, but also for women, as well as technical advisor to the football management. It is therefore partly on him that the success of a scarcely supplied recruitment unit will depend, and which had difficulties in managing the post-Florian Maurice period.
"President Aulas does not want to have a Mexican army of 50 scouts on the English model," Bruno Cheyrou told the OL channel on December 23.
In the end, you will recruit 3, 4 or 5 players per season, so there is no point in being everywhere in the world to have better recruitment.
By being a compact structure, with four scouts who are assigned areas of expertise, we are able to develop this cell in a hyper efficient and modern way.
"
Stéphane Henchoz turned to four foreign championships
In addition to Michel Rouquette (71 years), Alexandre Jeannin ("friend" of Bruno Cheyrou), and Alain Caveglia, arrived to compensate for the departure from Angers of the historic recruiter of OL Patrice Girard, the Lyon club formalized Wednesday as fourth scout of the cell Stéphane Henchoz.
This former Swiss international defender "will be in charge of the championships in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy".
A new organization to which must be added a video analyst and a person in charge of a platform on which all match reports will be centralized.
The will of all these beautiful people is clear, from this winter transfer window (which will end on January 31): "to bring players with high added value, with high potential".
Stéphane Henchoz joins Olympique Lyonnais to strengthen the club's recruitment unit, headed by Bruno Cheyrou.https: //t.co/uyJlmzuCLm
- Olympique Lyonnais (@OL) January 5, 2022
Lyon also relies on the support of academies and a partner club
Even if OL can also hope to have "a maximum of information" in Brazil, Senegal, China, South Korea, Vietnam and Lebanon, via its many academies, and in Portugal thanks to the partner club of Farense (2nd division), is this device substantial enough? Former Lyon side and recruiter at FC Nantes from 2019 to 2020 in a cell of three members, Jean-Marc Chanelet has his opinion on the question: "The ideal is to be five to be able to cover L1, L2, National , some foreign championships and international youth competitions. When I saw that until then there had only been two or three scouts at OL under Juninho, it didn't seem like much for a club with such an aura ”.
Ligue 1 clubs the size of Strasbourg and Montpellier were thus better equipped in this area than the Brazilian sports director, who relied at the start of the season only on Patrice Girard and Michel Rouquette.
Moreover, the main Lyon moves for two years have either been directly the work of Juninho (Bruno Guimaraes, Lucas Paqueta, Emerson Palmieri), or that of Peter Bosz (Jérôme Boateng).
Since his arrival, the Dutch coach has also been on the front line to push the ambitious tracks André Onana (Ajax) and Sardar Azmoun (Zénith).
"When you have little money, you have to be as ingenious as possible"
“Juninho has always had to be in the tinkering with OL in terms of recruitment, regrets one of his relatives. When you see how Toulouse is in L2 put itself at the forefront of scouting and data with Damien Comolli, without even comparing with the networks of patients of a club like Benfica or the RedBull galaxy… ”Mickael (29 years old) , aka Mycki ElScout on Twitter, last September had a job interview with Juninho, who wanted to recruit him to video scouting. For this Lyon supporter, ultimately not selected by the club management, the observation is implacable, from the moment when OL obviously does not have the financial power of PSG.
Other European clubs of the size of OL have about ten scouts and you obviously cannot carry out recruitment work equal to these clubs with so few resources put in place.
It's paradoxical because with the monstrous work of your academy, this is the other aspect to prioritize.
When you have little money and you can't splurge, you have to be as resourceful as possible about your recruitment.
Especially since your first big transfer made, you make profitable a recruitment unit more provided.
"
Aulas claims four times more scouts among young people than among the pros
In the 2000s, Bernard Lacombe could still work miracles with the support of Marcelo (not the current captain of the Lyon reserve team in National 2) to recruit Edmilson, Juninho, Cris and Claudio Caçapa in Brazil. The world of professional football has evolved to lead OL to the double jackpot of Florian Maurice during the summer of 2017, with the arrival of Tanguy Ndombele (20 years old) and Ferland Mendy (22 years old). Their emergence allowed Lyon to accumulate almost 100 million euros in added value when they left two seasons later. Vertiginous indemnities which recall the DNA of the 2010s of OL: the juicy transfers of nuggets
made in
"formidable academy" Alexandre Lacazette, Corentin Tolisso and Samuel Umtiti.
For @GARRIDOArmand, "Florian Maurice was much more than the recruiter of OL, he was one of the key men of the club in the same way as Bernard Lacombe".
@ 20Minutes leans forward #OLSRFC on his record in Lyon with Jean-Marc Chanelet @DorianGrange #TeamOL https://t.co/TI4HpZy1QK
- Jérémy Laugier (@JeremyLaugier) March 3, 2021
Three weeks ago, Jean-Michel Aulas also made a point of clarifying on RMC: “What was not said in these debates is that we have the third best academy in Europe, with 16 scouts.
We have invested 20 million euros for our academy, we are the first in France at this level ”.
Even if most of these recruiters do not work full time for OL, it is proof that Lyon has retained its firepower over time to attract the best young people.
This observation goes back to Alain Thiry from the 1990s, then to his successor Gérard Bonneau from 2003.
Among young people, OL are now less oriented towards the outside world
“Since the Alain Thiry period, a lot of painstaking work has always been done at local, departmental and regional level to supervise all the young players,” recalls Armand Garrido, emblematic trainer at OL, and himself a recruiter among young people. for the club in 2018-2019. From Hatem Ben Arfa, Lyon then took a turn to also recruit young people at the national level [Martial, Benzia, Belfodil, Ferri, Pléa] and even internationally [Njie]. It then made it possible to have a mix between the Rhônalpins and the players who arrived a little later from outside the training center. "
An era of co-education which is partly over, since all the new elements coming from the academy having made a place in the professional group (Caqueret, Cherki, Gusto and Lukeba) come for example from the metropolis of Lyon.
Times are changing for the current 13th in Ligue 1, and it is not Bruno Cheyrou, spent six months in the shadows with the women's section to a sudden light before Christmas, who will say the opposite.
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