Revolution is afoot in France and the blinged-up aristocrats could be overthrown. The Ligue 1 season was supposed to be another regal procession to the title for Paris Saint-Germain but it is not panning out like that and over the next two weekends Lyon, who are currently four points clear at the top of the league, could take sizeable strides towards toppling a regime that was thought to be untouchable.
Lyon are not exactly pitchfork-wielding sans culottes but their coronation this season would still be a remarkable reward for shrewd player development at a time when the Qatar-backed PSG threatened to crush all and sundry with their army of expensive stars.
PSG may have been forced by financial fair play rules to curb their expenditure slightly this season following three years of extravagant recruitment but they were still able to splurge £50m last summer to buy David Luiz from Chelsea as they set their sights on a third successive French title and a long run in the Champions League. Lyon, meanwhile, had entered an age of austerity that has seen them cut their wage bill by 40% over the last three years and concentrate on producing players in their academy rather than buying them ready-made.
So an era of PSG domination in France loomed large, especially as the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev decided to lavish less money on Monaco, who had been the one club able to compete with PSG in the transfer market. But PSG have stuttered under their manager, Laurent Blanc, this term and Lyon’s nursery has turned out to be more fertile than many expected.
On Sunday they face fifth-place Monaco and next weekend they welcome PSG. Win both clashes and they will be favourites to win their first title since 2008, with a team in which over three-quarters of the regular starters are homegrown.
As if the odds were not already long enough against Lyon, they will have to take on Monaco and possibly also PSG without their outstanding player of the season so far, striker Alexandre Lacazette. Lyon are the league’s top-scorers thanks largely to Lacazette, who plundered 21 goals in 22 league matches this season before suffering an injury against Metz last weekend, an even better strike rate than Zlatan Ibrahimovic had at the same stage in his record-breaking campaign last season.
There were concerns that Europe’s elite might prise Lacazette away in January even though he extended his contract at Lyon in September. However Jean-Michel Aulas, Lyon’s chairman, made it clear that player was “untransferable” during the current window and said it would take more than the world record £85m that Real Madrid paid for Gareth Bale to even tempt him to sell in the summer. “What is the name of that Welshman at Real Madrid?” sniffed Aulas earlier this month. “[Lacazette] is much better than him. There is no point even discussing transfer fees.”
Lacazette’s value to Lyon derives from more than just his performances on the pitch. He has huge symbolic significance for the club. Aulas has been in charge for 28 years, having taken over the club when it was in the second tier and heavily in debt and then turning it into one of the country’s dominant forces, winning seven titles in a row between 2002 and 2008. Their recent belt-tightening and focus on youth development has been caused in part by the costs of a new 58,000-seater stadium in a 120-acre complex featuring a hotel, leisure centre and clinic.
After many delays due to legal disputes, Lyon expect to move into their new home in December. To crown the completion of his vision, Aulas, who is now 65 and admits he has started to think about handing over the club’s reins, wants his team to start beating the cream of the continent in their swanky new stadium with a side consisting entirely of the fruit of the club’s academy. He would be loth to let Lacazette go the way of Karim Benzema, the most high-profile Lyon graduate to date. So unless Lyon fall away this season and fail to even qualify for the Champions League, it will take a spectacular offer to convince the chairman to free Lacazette from his contract.
The same probably goes for the elegant midfield schemer Clément Grenier, the dynamic captain, Maxime Gonalons, and the enterprising full-back Samuel Umtiti, three other excellent academy graduates who have signed new contracts this season despite interest from other clubs.
Nabil Fekir, the wonderfully tricky livewire winger who has perhaps been the most eye-catching Lyon player this season after Lacazette, also signed a new deal last summer and the 21-year-old is another powerful totem of the bond between Lyon and their current players.
He was released by the Lyon academy as a 14-year-old for being too small and injury-prone but despite offers from other clubs he jumped at the chance to re-enter the academy a few years later when the club realised it had made a rare misjudgment. Aulas says that once they move into their new stadium Lyon will start making profits again and become one of the top 10 clubs in Europe. If they go there as French champions, they will have proved that they do not need as much money as others to gain success.
