How Lyon went from relegation to Champions League places overnight

To say that 2025 was a tumultuous year for Olympique Lyonnais would be a massive understatement. It certainly started in dramatic fashion, with the club being barred from signing any new players in January by the DNCG, French football’s financial watchdog. Worse yet, they had been handed a provisional relegation to Ligue 2 due to financial mismanagement.

The real trouble, though, was the fact that the root of the issue hadn’t been addressed. John Textor’s Eagle Football Group remained in charge of the club, with the American businessman following the famous philosopher Limmy’s advice of doubling down rather than backing down.

Lyon’s financial condition was far from ideal when Textor and company took over in December 2022, but the new owners had much bigger and better things to do than being financially sensible. They found themselves at odds with the DNCG from the off, as a club-record move for teenage winger Ernest Nuamah was blocked in the summer of 2023 to prevent excessive spending. This merely was a minor inconvenience for EFG, who simply signed him through their Belgian second-tier side RWD Molenbeek (smashing the league’s transfer record in the process) before immediately loaning him to Lyon, and eventually making the transfer permanent a year later.

This was just one of many interesting moves that Lyon made under Textor’s stewardship, with others including sending more than €55m to his good friend Evangelos Marinakis’ Nottingham Forest for the signings of Moussa Niakhaté and Orel Mangala in the summer of 2024. Unsurprisingly, then, the club’s debts totalled in the hundreds of millions when 2025 rolled around, but even that was not enough to stop Textor.

Amid all the pressure and scrutiny in January 2025, the American tycoon did relent to some extent by negotiating sales for Maxence Caqueret, Gift Orban and Saïd Benrahma. However, he could not entirely resist the urge to partake in player trading as he brought Thiago Almada and Ardeylson to Lyon on loan from his Brazilian side Botafogo. He also sacked Pierre Sage and replaced him with Paulo Fonseca by the end of the month, despite the team being in the hunt for a Champions League spot. On the whole, Textor remained defiant of the DNCG’s sanctions, causing them to make Lyon’s relegation official at the end of the 2024/25 season.

That proved to be the breaking point as Textor finally resigned, leaving EFG shareholder and OL women’s team owner Michele Kang to take over. The American businesswoman is herself no stranger to interesting multi-club moves (just ask Washington Spirit fans about Jonatan Giráldez), but she has very much taken the safe and sensible approach with Les Gones. The new ownership group provided a cash injection of around €100m and generally steadied the ship to convince the DNCG to overturn their decision. Then, it was time for a sizeable rebuild.

Summer shake-up

The primary focus of Lyon’s transfer strategy last summer was to both make some money and stop losing money. So, they negotiated a couple of big sales as Rayan Cherki and Georges Mikautadze left for pastures new in exchange for €77.5m combined. Equally importantly, though, OL cut down the wage bill by saying goodbye to half of their top earners.

As per Capology, 12 players on Lyon’s books had base salaries of more than €3m last season. Two of the top four left for Saudi Arabia as Alexandre Lacazette and Benrahma signed permanent deals with the very real NEOM SC. Qatari side Al-Arabi helped out by taking Jordan Veretout, while Nemanja Matić left for Sassuolo on a free transfer. All told, Lyon brought their base player salary spending down significantly from €81.4m to €57.4m this season.

Of course, all of these departures left some pretty big holes in the squad. Lyon’s plan to plug them involved signing younger players and dealing with smaller clubs to a greater extent. They did spend €10m on Liverpool youngster Tyler Morton, but also made five other permanent signings for about €25m. These included Mallorca goalkeeper Dominik Greif, Casa Pia defender Ruben Kluivert, Sporting CP teenager Afonso Moreira and Czech international Pavel Šulc, who had hit 20 goals in his domestic league in each of the previous two seasons.

With the help of a few loans, Lyon regenerated their squad for well under half of what they earned in the transfer window. They certainly had done the necessary job from a financial standpoint, but of course, a tradeoff looked likely in sporting terms.

A consistent defensive base

Lyon’s roster for the season is young and talented, but also quite limited in various departments. Most notably, they lacked a line-leading striker as well as quality depth in the spine of the team going into the campaign.

It should be no surprise, then, that the seven players to have spent over 1,500 minutes on the pitch for Lyon in Ligue 1 this season all play a part in forming a solid base. Namely, they are centre back pair Clinton Mata and Moussa Niakhaté, goalkeeper Greif, right back Ainsley Maitland-Niles, and the midfield trio of Morton, Tanner Tessman and Corentin Tolisso.

Looking at the numbers, it seems that a sturdy defence has been the key to Lyon’s success so far this season. They have the joint-most clean sheets in the league and the second-lowest xG conceded tally as per Opta data.

As the numbers also suggest, Lyon aren’t necessarily a team that always sits back. They have the fifth-lowest PPDA figure in Ligue 1 and mostly tend to start high up the pitch. However, theirs is anything but a conventional press, as they are fifth from bottom for pressed sequences and have generated the sixth-fewest high turnovers in the division per Opta data.

Fonseca’s side have shown various different setups, particularly against goal kicks, as they often tend to be very player-oriented. They’ve also used a compact 4-4-2 block or some variation thereof, especially in recent times, and can also switch to a back five if needed. However, their most common structure has been this narrow 4-3-3.

In this shape, the front three’s responsibility is to block off the centre and selectively step up to press, leaving the ball-side midfielder or full-back to step out wide if the opposition passes that way. As a result, their defensive activity heatmap looks extremely unconventional with little activity in the centre of the pitch.

A lack of strong options in central defensive midfield coupled with a lack of depth to commit to a high-intensity press might be the rationale behind this approach, but it certainly has its limitations. For one, the lack of constant pressure combined with a narrow and high defensive line can leave Lyon exposed to long balls, especially against wide wingers.

Les Gones have conceded 10 or more shots in five of their last seven matches but managed to win six, so they certainly benefited from some good fortune and goalkeeping in their winning streak. On the whole, though, this approach has served them well enough for Fonseca to take credit for doing a good job of shoring up the defence.

Room for improvement in attack

Lyon’s attacking metrics and tendencies are particularly unusual, again largely due to the nature of their squad. Their defensive tactics also play a part as they haven’t scored a single goal from a high turnover this season, according to Opta’s data.

With settled possession, Fonseca’s side often tend to play out from the back but typically find themselves limited by a lack of progressive passing in midfield. Consequently, one of their options is to use a very deep midfield duo to bait the opposition press before attempting to release the forwards in transition.

They do have a couple of good runners in the side, who have contributed to their league-topping return of five goals from direct attacks by Opta’s definition. New winger Moreira often provides a great outlet in behind on the left, complete with high-quality chance creation.

Summer signing Šulc has been even more impressive as he has hit double digits for league goals. Although he previously played behind a striker at Viktoria Plzeň, he has had to do a job in a central role for Lyon. His relentless work rate, intense running, clever movement in the box and composed finishing have suited the aforementioned style of transition attacking to a T.

This is also why Endrick has hit the ground running in Lyon after his winter loan move. He has been used on the right thus far to keep Šulc in the centre, but with both of the aforementioned attackers now out injured, the Brazilian youngster will be tasked with bigger responsibilities in the coming games.

Fonseca will hope to see the ex-Palmeiras forward develop his box presence in France, as Lyon have rather struggled to break down disciplined deep blocks. Corentin Tolisso can be a wildcard at times, but they otherwise often have to rely on passing and carrying from the defenders to test their opposing counterparts. That is a big reason why Les Gones are around the mid-table in terms of goals scored and xG created; they can create quality chances in certain circumstances, but have struggled for volume.

Given the circumstances, Lyon should be mighty pleased with the way their season has gone so far. Of course, the 13-match winning streak has put them in a great position across all competitions. They have reached the latter rounds of both cups, but the main priority has to be securing the top three league finish that they are currently well on course for.

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