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Coroner's Report (Olympique Lyonnais 2024 - 2025 postseason review)

In which a joke about writing a dissertation on Lyon's season ended up actually happening.

Not quite how I thought the season would go, but let's chat regardless. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine and let's work our way through things. Putting it under a read more because when has a coroner's report ever been brief?

Joe Montemurro

I actually like him and I think he's a good coach and, for the most part, pretty sound tactically. I think there's a lot of mock outrage surrounding him, much like there is with Lindsey Heaps, and that's something I will get more in depth with.

For all the screaming about how he "destroyed" Lyon this season, the reality is, he didn't. Barring maybe a handful of games, Lyon was playing well. The defense was crisp, the finishing got better, there was ball movement. And the players looked much happier under him that they did under Sonia Bompastor or even Jean-Luc Vasseur.

Maybe people just weren't around when things were really bad, but from a play point of view, this team wasn't the disaster so many on Twitter claim they were. They weren't always great, sure, but they weren't bad. In fact, they were actually pretty good most of the time.

Now it must be said that Montemurro definitely had his preferred players and preferred starting 11, and I think some of the outrage comes from said preferences. It's easy to dislike a coach when the premise is he is playing this player and not playing that player. So it really does feel that a lot of vitriol comes more from him playing a player someone really dislikes and as such not playing their favourite player. But it's so performative at best. Montemurro coached Lyon into having one of their best defensive stats in years. The offense was good. Those are actual statistics. So acting like he is terrible, threatening to "hang him by his eyelids" - for what? Because he started a player you didn't like? You can't be the worse coach in history and have those stats throughout the season.

He was good - not great - about player rotation. I would argue Damaris was probably overplayed, especially when Dabritz is more than capable of playing as a No. 6, but it could also be down to there being no other natural DM other than Damaris. Why we haven't gotten a genuine backup yet is beyond me and needs to be addressed this summer. More on that later. But I think you could argue that while he had his preferred players, there was still a fair amount of rotation. Carpenter wasn't run into this ground this season in large part because Huerta, who is more suited to the RB position than Sombath despite what the armchair analysts opine on Twitter, was capable of stepping in. Marozsan was overplayed in that she physically cannot run for 90 minutes, be it in September or May.

Did I always agree with Montemurro's coaching decisions? No. Do I think some players deserved to be benched? You bet. Did I always like his starting lineup? Hell no. You can disagree with and dislike a coach's decisions while still understanding the lineups aren't a slight towards you. It really, really frustrated me when people on Twitter were screaming about how he was "disrespecting" Hegerberg and/or Marozsan and/or whomever else by not playing them as much. The reality of the situation is coaches have access to the players' health data and we don't. If Hegerberg wasn't playing 90 minutes every single game, maybe it's because she wasn't physically fit to do so. There is a difference between a coach being bad because the tactics aren't there and a coach being bad simply because he is not playing your favorite player.

I wouldn't have headed for the fainting couch if he saw out his contract but realistically he was always going to go after the humiliating loss against Arsenal - and it was that, a humiliation. I don't think he was the sole reason we lost that game, lord knows Vanessa Gilles' performance (or maybe lack of) is the main contributing factor, but as coach, he has to take responsibility for the good and the bad.

And that loss wasn't just bad, it was catastrophic.

Going out in the first round of the Coupe de France was bad, and I think that was probably the only "grace" Kang was willing to afford him. Going out in the UWCL in that manner and at home, he was never going to see out his contract. In the real professional world you would be fired for failing to reach your business objectives, this is no different. So, did I want him fired? Not really. Do I think he should have been? Yes. You simply cannot have that kind of performance in a UWCL semifinal and have there be no consequences. That's not how professional teams are run.

Since I think he was good, and it wasn't a case like with Bompastor where the locker room was lost almost a year prior, I reserve the right to be anxious about who the replacement will be. For the record, I don't think it's Jocelyn Precheur because I don't think Kang will change the coaching staff of a newly promoted team (London City), something confirmed by L'Equipe. Likewise, I genuinely doubt Giraldez transferring to Lyon would ever happen albeit for different reasons.

Goalkeepers

Endler's performance in the second leg of the UWCL semi final Arsenal outweighs any good saves this season. If we're going to hold players accountable, Endler needs to be on the list. She should have done better. You can't make an argument that you're one of the best goalkeepers in the world and promptly let in four goals, one of which was an own goal. Yes, Lyon had a good run in the UWCL when it came to clean sheets. Yes, the number of goals conceded in league play were minimal. There were good moments, sure, but there was a really bad one too, and we need to acknowledge that.

Part of it could come from the Goalkeeper Dilemma Lyon has. Endler knows that as long as she is there and healthy, she is the starting goalkeeper. The second goalkeeper plays in case of injury or injury prevention, and depending on the coach, rotation. She knows there is no real competition. Her spot is safe barring very specific circumstances. She also knows that realistically, no top goalkeeper is going to play second fiddle. Whomever Lyon brings in isn't going to be a threat to her starting spot. And that's how you become complacent.

And that leads up to Benkarth. I don't blame her for leaving, I don't. She knew the deal when she came in and basically got paid to sit on the bench for a couple of years. I would have left too. She didn't get enough play because of Lyon's policy with Endler, as such when she did get playing time, there was always a noticeable lack of confidence. A disappointing signing, sure, but not entirely a fault of her own making.

Defense

Has there ever been a quicker hero to villain arc than that of Vanessa Gilles? I've never seen a player lose fan support so quickly (90 minutes) and with the absolute certainty that she will never, ever get it back. It's a shame. Twitter armchair analysts like to shit on Lyon's defense, which is weird because they did have the best defense in the league and in the UWCL (or at least did up to the semifinals). And we have to acknowledge Gilles was a part of that. So I'm not saying Gilles is a bad defender because she's not. I genuinely believe that Bayern is getting a really good deal by signing her. She's a good player and a good person. I'm not denying any of that. I am saying however that the kind of mistake she made against Arsenal is unforgivable.

But it's also kind of easy to understand why Gilles was in that (lack of?) head space. She's been with the club for three years, she's been playing really well for them. Everyone was expecting Lyon to extend her at the beginning of the season so I get why Lyon turning around and buying Tarciane and giving the Brazilian a ridiculous amount of money considering her complete and utter lack of experience must have been a real slap in the face. It's hard when you realize someone doesn't love you the same way you love them. But Gilles is a professional, and she should have been able to separate the personal from the professional. The fact that she didn't, that's what's really hard to get over.

Renard being extended is good, but the bulk of the experience in the backline should not be on Renard alone, especially since she is 34 and also injury prone. There is a fundamental need to recruit an experienced center back. If something happens to Renard before an important game, we cannot be relying on a center back pairing where the oldest player is 21 years old.

There are definite causes of concern for Tarciane so let's go over them. First, she's slow. That wouldn't be an issue except that Renard is slow and Damaris is slow. The central alignment of Lyon is not speedy. That can and will be an issue down the road. Second, she's physical, which normally I would be very supportive of, but what she is not is composed. It feels like every time she plays she picks up a yellow card, and it's not like she's been playing against overly physical teams. Imagine what will happen if she has start against PSG, or maybe even Paris FC or Fleury - teams who won't hesitate to get scrappy and will look for any excuse to get an opponent carded. Tarciane is a red card waiting to happen and there is a very high likelihood that red card is going to come in a high stakes game. She was brought in to replace an experienced defender, it's up to her to live up to the same standards. Patience does not excuse losing.

It's been hard to get a good read on Nelhage. I wasn't at all impressed with her against Le Havre but didn't exactly recoil with horror when she played in a couple of other games. Like with Tarciane, there is a very high ceiling she has to reach and little grace to reach it.

I have reservations about Sombath. She's a good defender, that goes without saying. But her lack of height is an issue. She doesn't have the physical presence to defend on corners or free kicks. It still bothers me that someone tried to excuse her lack of height with "well she has good footwork". That isn't going to matter when you are surrounded by forwards who have a good 10 - 15 cms on you. It is inevitable that the opposing teams will be awarded a free kick or a corner. We will be down a defender with Sombath. While she can play RB, that is not her natural position. Eventually players playing out of position get exposed. We saw it when she was covering for Carpenter during Lyon's 2022 - 2023 injury crisis. Why are we to believe that will change?

Speaking of Carpenter... Let's get 300 takeout coffees and then discuss if she's a lying traitor. Look, my opinion on player-player relationships is well documented, it hasn't changed. I think if she leaves it will be a mistake, both for her and for the quite frankly absurd idea that N'Dongala would be a good replacement. More on that in a later section, as well as the social media abuse she cops from certain individuals. Anyway, let's chat.

It's hard to properly dissect her season's performance because in terms of statistics, she's decent. It's far from the alleged disaster performance that the likes of certain Twitter trolls like to allege game after game. I think that Huerta did Carpenter a lot of good. According to statistics, Carpenter actually played more this season than she did the previous one. Originally I thought it was because she was getting more rest, but I think it's also because Huerta was there. There was an element of complacency in earlier seasons because realistically, Sombath was not a threat to her position as, and it must be repeated, Sombath is not a right back by nature. Huerta was, and it forced Carpenter to be better. Her chemistry with Diani was really good this season. I think that if we're being honest with ourselves, part of Diani's success this season is because they played off each other so well. While her cross accuracy is never going to be 100 percent - none of Lyon's RBs have ever been great at crosses, for some reason there is some selective memories going on there - I think it has improved.

There was some super weird pearl clutching after the Dijon game where someone was outraged that Carpenter had gotten forward more this season than Bacha had, which may be news to Bacha considering she has delivered several assist this season. Let's discuss things a bit more. She didn't play a full season, so her numbers are always going to be a bit on the lower side. She also had to deal with Chawinga throughout most of the season and if Carpenter and Diani showed what a pairing looks like when it works well, Bacha and Chawinga showed us what it looks like when it doesn't. There wasn't that same fluidity as in previous seasons because Bacha and Chawinga have completely different styles of play. Likewise, there isn't the same innate chemistry between Bacha and Dumornay as there is between Bacha and Hegerberg. Will it come with time? Hard to say. Bacha and Hegerberg had years together, the chemistry was built over time. It combusts with Chawinga and there is displacement with Dumornay.

Could anyone have predicted Svava's arc this season? The absolute head loss when she signed was something else. I admit I was guilty of that. There was just such a complete meltdown from Lyon fans when the club announced they were signing a bench player from Real Madrid. Then Bacha announced her operation and how long she would be out for and I firmly believe the heightened blood pressure from everyone would have delighted every medical expert. But you know, we were all humbled extremely quickly. Bacha is a better player, sure, but there is no noticeable drop in quality when Svava is on the field. A pure no-nonsense player, she keeps her head down, does her job, and doesn't color outside the lines. She is probably one of the better signings Lyon has done in years. Who would have thought that the bench player from Real Madrid would be the most successful signing of the season?

And that leaves us with Huerta. As with Svava, she is a no-nonsense, quiet defender who just kept her head down and did her job. I wish we could extend her loan though realistically that's not going to happen. But she was good for Lyon, good for Carpenter. This is the type of player Lyon needs: someone who can step up but doesn't have a burning innate desire to be the center of attention while doing so. I've always had a soft spot for quiet players. I think she will be one of the absences we will feel the most but it will take a while to kick in.

Midfield

I cannot stand how the Twitter armchair analysts have turned me into a Heaps defender. It's so annoying.

I cannot take any "criticism" of Heaps seriously because it is always done in such bad faith. It drives me up the wall. The argument "She's a Trump loving Republican" as an excuse to dislike her is so flawed on so many levels. Now, for the record, I do think that anyone who supports someone as repulsive as Trump in this day and age, or someone who supports the Republican Party in this day and age, is morally reprehensible. You cannot be both a good person, who has moral values and cares about the rights of others, and support Trump at the same time. Let's make that very, very clear. You cannot say in May 2025 that you are a good person if you also say Trump is a good president. And that's my bone to pick here. There is zero, absolutely zero, indication that the Heaps who openly supported Trump in November 2016 is the same one in May 2025. For starters, almost 10 years have gone past, and two, while I absolutely hate this argument, her closest friends are in the LGBT community. Your bridesmaid is typically not someone you also want dead.

With that out of the way, let's chat about her as a footballer, since that's another thing people like to pearl clutch about. Let’s see her contributions for the season: 13 goals/ 10 assists. Last goal was against Dijon in the playoffs, last assist was against PSG in the final of the playoffs. This is a player who, contrary to what certain Twitter like to say, does contribute to the game. Those are good numbers, especially considering she is a midfielder, not a forward.

There is genuine criticism for Heaps (I agree with the analysis that she is the type of player who chooses which games she wants to show up for and I agree she should be contributing more to the press) but Jesus. Fucking. Christ. The performative outrage. I cannot take these "fans" anymore, I just cannot. Heaps could exhale and they would be up in arms screaming that she is disrespecting people who are on oxygen. Heaps is a lot of things and not all of them are positive. But a dead weight is not one of them. A bad player is not one of them.

Let’s talk about Marozsan. Let’s talk about how she was given a second chance under Montemurro (is he still “disrespecting club legends” by playing her? I am not sure how this works, hopefully someone will explain it to me). In any case, Bompastor very clearly was pushing Marozsan out, which was one of the few decisions I agreed with her on, but Montemurro dusted her off and put her in the starting lineup. What did that give us? Seven (7) assists on the season, the last of which came against Paris FC in April. Zero goals scored, you have to go back to March 2024 for that.

She physically cannot go 90 minutes. This is not a question of whether she can do it in September, at the beginning of the season, or in May, at the end. She physically cannot do it. She physically cannot handle a press nor can she contribute to it. Does she have good vision, yes, but that is not good enough. Being a world class player from 2016 - 2020 doesn’t erase the fact she is miles below Lyon standards now. If we’re honest she should have gone years ago, but the club was too lax and afraid of making decisions regarding so-called club legends to cut her loose. I'm glad for her that Montemurro gave her a second chance (is he still a bad coach for that? It's so hard to make sense of their thought process), but we wasted a year because of it. Was Lyon really better for it because Marozsan was playing this season? If we're being honest with ourselves, the answer is no, not really.

It's hard to really get a read on Dabritz's season because I do maintain she was criminally underused, both under Bompastor and under Montemurro. A player of that caliber is wasted on the bench. I'm glad that she is moving on in that she deserved better than what Lyon gave her. I told someone that Dabritz is the kind of player that you don't always realize you wanted until they are gone. A quiet, no-nonsense player who just kept her head down and did her job, she is a player I will miss deeply. I truly do wish Lyon had treated her right and I sincerely hope she finds a team that does. Players like Dabritz don't come along very often. I will miss her professionalism, and her left foot, so very much.

I could talk about Damaris for hours and since this is my analysis/blog, I can do just that. It's so fascinating to me that there is so much performative outrage about Heaps when so much of the same "criticism" could be applied to Damaris. She is slow. She makes dumb mistakes. If we apply the literal definition of "not contributing", she scored one (1) goal this entire season (Carpenter, a RB, has scored more goals than Damaris, a DM). Her assists aren't much better with three on the season. Now, am I expecting a defensive midfielder to be banging in goals? Yes when they're as tall as Damaris and playing for a team like Lyon. She has height and her aerial game is good. She should be contributing much more to the offense.

I thought that Damaris also got in her head a lot more this season than she has in the past. It was particularly noticeable in the UWCL games, both in the group stage and in the knockouts. At that point, at this level, it's a genuine cause for concern. She's been in this situation enough times that she shouldn't be heading for the fainting couch every time something goes wrong or there is the slightest hint of a press.

I think that she needs competition. If Huerta made Carpenter better, I think - and hope - that if Engen comes, she will do the same for Damaris. I think Damaris is one of the players this season who has become guilty of complacency. There are expectations that come with playing for Lyon. It would be good for Damaris to be reminded that she is not the only one capable of living up to them.

Van de Donk: Stat wise, she was decent - neither good nor bad with seven goals and four assists. If we're going to nitpick we can argue her last contribution was back in February, but she was injured for some of the time since then. I feel like her absence is felt in that there is a noticeable lack of physicality when she isn't playing. Unlike a couple of other midfielders, she has no hesitation in getting in the opponent's face and will fight for a 50-50 ball. So there is contribution off the ball as well. Her physicality will be difficult to replace, and that's something Lyon will really have to address in terms of recruitment.

Look, my opinion on Majri is well documented. I think Lyon should have offloaded her years ago. It's not to say she hasn't contributed this season because she has (seven goals, six assists). I'm not above saying those are good contributions (see? It's possible to dislike a player and still give them credit). But she's on the older side, and if we're going to choose between a player who does struggle to make it through 90 minutes and also hates being on the bench versus a player like Brand, I think Lyon needs to make the practical choice. That being said, she's a 2026 contract, Le Progres floated her as a potential departure this summer. It would be a loss if we didn't get Brand, I don't think it would be catastrophic if Majri left. Much like with Marozsan, being a club legend doesn't mean that Lyon owes her a contract and playing time in perpetuity.

Benyahia: It's hard to really give a season review on Benyahia for two reasons: one, she was injured with severe TBI throughout most of it and two, she didn't play in any really important games. Can't accuse her of ghosting when she wasn't there to begin with. I absolutely hate the argument that she should have benched a combination of Heaps/van de Donk/even Dabritz because the reality is, we have no idea if Benyahia is capable of being a big game player. Lyon couldn't afford to gamble in those games. The argument of "well she had a standout season with Le Havre" overlooks the rather important factor that Le Havre is consistently a mid to bottom table team. It's not as if she benched a top player on a top team. Her lack of physicality is a cause for concern for me. It would not be that difficult to muscle her off the ball and she lacks van de Donk's aggressiveness in getting it back.

Forwards

Chawinga has to go. You can't be on that kind of salary and put up those kinds of performances. This is a business, not a charity. I'm sympathetic to the argument she had to get used to playing for Lyon but that doesn't excuse her lackluster performances. At 70,000/month, you cannot afford to have numbers that low (9 goals, seven assists). Those look okay as long as you don't compare her with her previous season at PSG (24 goals; 11 assists) or Inter Milan (23 goals, 7 assists). She's fast, and speed is important, but her lack of technique is flagrant. I'm not asking her to have the best footwork in the league or even on the team. But it's not unreasonable to ask her to have some. She struggles with defensive contributions.

Dumornay is a forward. She is welcome to open a bottle of Jack and split a fifth with Miedema and talk about how just because you want to play a certain position, doesn't mean you should. She might prefer to play in the midfield but that's not how it works at Lyon. You don't play where you prefer to be, you play where you're asked. That being said, as much as I rip into her, I will also acknowledge she is one of the players who contributed the most throughout the season (along with Heaps). Productivity matters. If you're playing up front, I expect you to score, and she did. While there has been improvement regarding being able to keep her composure, it's still an issue from time to time and does need to be worked on. Otherwise, a reliable player overall and will probably improve even more once she accepts she's not playing as a midfielder.

Hegerberg is a bit of a complicated case. She's extremely injury prone, but she's also such an important part of the locker room in terms of leadership. Lyon is better for it when she is around. But as I said with Montemurro, we don't have access to her health records and Lyon's coaching staff does. Occam's razor: Hegerberg played on limited minutes throughout the season to avoid any risk of serious injury, especially with the Euros coming up and Hegerberg being named captain. In her prime she could handle a physical match for 90 minutes but we don't know if that's still the case, and we don't know if Norway would be that happy about Lyon risking it with the Euros on the line. Her performance against Arsenal was not great to say the least. If Katoto comes and if Hegerberg stays healthy, it will be interesting to see how Hegerberg copes with a genuine threat to her position.

Here's the thing about Le Sommer: players like her don't come along every day. Renard teared up in the press conference when she was asked about Le Sommer and for good cause. I would too. Players like Le Sommer, you get them once and that's it. There won't be another player like her. There'll be other forwards, sure, other goal scorers. But players as complete as she is, a person as good as she is, they don't come along every day. Her technique and vision of the game, I really don't think people understand just how good she really is. Her professionalism is out of this world. Someone once said that Le Sommer's biggest crime was having played on the same team and at the same time as Hegerberg and I think that's true. Her numbers are insane but they're often overlooked because Lyon has another flashy goalscorer. But Lyon, without a doubt, will be a little worse off without her.

Diani was pretty decent stat wise (15 goals, 10 assists), almost identical to how she was last season. But I think her partnership with Carpenter was really good. Diani is a fast, technical player, and we've seen her grow into the role at Lyon. But as with Dumornay, there are times when she very obviously got into her head, and once that happened, she struggled to get back into the game. Would I have preferred her to be a little more clinical? Yes, but I acknowledge that comes from a place of greed. We know she can score more, but the numbers are decent so we can't really complain too much.

Becho has to go. I've been saying it for years and that's not going to change any time soon. I'm so, so sick of the argument "we just need to give her a chance to prove herself." She's been given opportunity after opportunity to prove herself. After a while, we need to come to an uncomfortable conclusion: her numbers are insufficient for an attacking player at Lyon. Being an academy player does not mean you get infinite chances, especially when the results have been obvious for a long time.

Academy Players

One of my favorite topics to complain about. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I've said it before, I'm saying it now, and I will continue to say in the future: you cannot be both a development club and a UWCL contender. You simply cannot. In order to be competitive in the UWCL, in order to be a title contender, you need experienced players. You need players who have been there before, who know what it takes because they have already lived through it. They can handle pressure and expectations and adrenaline rushes because they have already been exposed to that.

Academy players by their very nature and definition have not.

The thing is, too, Lyon can't afford to fuck around and find out with academy players. Lyon is already at a massive disadvantage in terms of attendance - they're never going to sell out Groupama -, they're at a disadvantage in terms of how "attractive" the French league is in terms of media exposure, sponsorships, etc. The main thing Lyon has going for them is UWCL play and salaries. If you take the first one away, the second one will disappear too, and then Lyon will truly be handicapped in terms of recruitment.

What does that have to do with academy players? Quite a lot actually. I'm sure there are quite a few academy players who have potential. But it doesn't mean that every academy player is going to end up like Bacha or Cascarino. If we're being honest with ourselves - and I think we owe it to ourselves to be - players like Bacha and Cascarino, they don't come along every year. I'm not saying they're generational, but I am saying they're rare. Not every player is going to be a Selma Bacha or a Delphine Cascarino. They're just not.

And Lyon can't afford to wait around and find out if they will be or not. Lyon has to be focused on UWCL play because it's how they recruit top players. Lyon's pretty much sole guarantee as a team is UWCL play. If we take that away - if we shift the focus away from top players and focus more on players who may have potential, who might make it as a top player on a top team, then they're putting UWCL at risk. As a club, Lyon will not survive it. Not financially, not competitively.

Look, if this was the NWSL and everything starts from scratch the following season, sure. Blow off a season, fuck around and find out, see what happens with a defensive line of an average age of 21 and a midfield of an average age of 22. What's the worse that could happen? You finish mid to bottom of the league? Who cares, you go again the next season. You just wasted a year in the grand scheme of things but there were no real consequences. So why not fuck around and find out?

Lyon doesn't have that joker. Not with the way UWCL is structured, not with the way the league is structured. It would be absolutely catastrophic from a financial point of view if Lyon missed out on UWCL in its entirety, probably equally as much as if they grouped next season - which, with the anticipated exodus of experienced players to replaced by U-21s and under, is a real possibility. Who cares though, academy players deserve a right to show what they can do, even if it comes with financial consequences for the next several seasons.

If your passion lays purely with academy kids getting playing time, then there are other clubs whose primarily focus is just that: Stade de Reims might have been relegated but I am sure if you dig around hard enough there must be a dodgy stream of D2 somewhere; Le Havre also managed to stay up as per their yearly tradition despite everyone's selective memory.

Roster Changes

Let's break this into two parts: departures and suspected arrivals. I'm saying "suspected" because there hasn't been anything officially announced for the arrivals.

Departures

Laura Benkarth's departure was leaked back in March by German media outlet 90min. Her departure doesn't come as a surprise, she had little playing time. But it's something that was always going to happen, especially since Lyon has made it clear Endler is always going to be the starting goalkeeper. Her statistics aren't bad per se (4 games played, 3 clean sheets but all against lower teams). I won't be sad to see her go in that sense, but we go back to the goalkeeper dilemma: your backup goalkeeper needs to be good enough that they can step in to replace Endler and there not be a noticeable drop in quality; no quality goalkeeper is going to be fine with sitting on the bench for probably 90 percent of the season.

Sara Dabritz's departure was also leaked by German outlet 90min back in April. For me, Dabritz really will be The One That Got Away. A quiet, no-nonsense player who just kept her head down and did her job, she deserved more playing time both under Bompastor and under Montemurro. I will miss her deeply. Her professionalism will be hard to replace.

I touched on Vanessa Gilles' departure quite a bit in the defense section. Up until the Arsenal game I would have said her departure was a loss. Now, forgiveness takes time and I am nowhere near there yet. She contributed a lot, and I will give her that. For the most part she was a solid defender and an aerial threat. She did the locker room a lot of good. But her disaster performance balances all that out. You cannot win the UWCL with a defender who is such a liability, whose head loss is self-inflicted. I won't wish her bad things, but I do not wish her well. We are not there yet.

Marozsan, I touched on her before and again in the social media abuse section. I maintain Lyon kept her for maybe three, four years too long. Was she arguably the best player in her prime? Yes. But those days ended back a long time ago. Instead Lyon kept an extremely expensive player who contributed... what, exactly? I don't think, in recent years, that Lyon was necessarily better for it when Marozsan was on the field. Keeping on a player past their prime simply because they are a club legend does both the player and the club a disservice. Let her end her career wherever - somewhere she doesn't have to worry about contributing to a high press, somewhere where defensive efforts aren't expected of her.

Will I miss van de Donk? Not right now. Who knows for the future. I think she was good, I think Lyon needed her when she signed, I think she contributed as much as she was capable of. I'll give her all that, sure. But she too had a tendency to get into her head at times during big games. Paris Saint-Germain will be relieved to see her go since she enjoyed scoring against them, and I do love a player who dunks on PSG. But that wasn't enough to justify extending a 34-year-old midfielder who was becoming more and more injury prone. I get Lyon's reasoning behind the lack of extension even if I remain cautious about it - if both Marozsan and van de Donk leave, Lyon is left with an extremely inexperienced midfielder in Mendy and Benyahia, neither of which have experience in the UWCL or playing consistently in big teams/games.

Huerta, what to say? She did Carpenter a lot of good. No-nonsense players will always be a weakness of mine and she was exactly that. On a selfish level I hope there is a way Lyon can work something out with Seattle Reign but realistically that's not going to happen. I hope whomever Lyon brings in as a replacement is one who will push Carpenter the same way Huerta did. I think that's the area where we will feel her absence the most.

I have so much to say about Le Sommer's departure but I think A Softer World said it best: "But nothing since you and me even feels like love." At 36, a non-renewal was always going to be on the table. It will be really, really strange seeing her in a jersey that isn't Lyon's. I just hope that wherever she ends up, the fans see her in the same way Lyon fans did: someone who will always, always do what is right by the team. Her professionalism is beyond all reproach.

Suspected Arrivals

There's concern about Marie-Antoinette Katoto coming to Lyon and for good cause. According to reports, Katoto is refusing to play for Paris Saint-Germain for the remainder of the season because she objects to the firing of former head coach Abriel, a coach who failed to win the Coupe de France and also failed to qualify for the group stages in the UWCL. She also got into it with the board of directors, and depending on how you read it, "got into it" could also mean getting physical. In addition to that, there is her notable contribution in the Diallo scandal.

So it's fair to question her signing, it's fair to be concerned that she will blow up the locker room, it's fair to question whether she can leave the baggage at the front door. But it's also fair to say that people had the same concerns about Diani, who has not proven to be problematic at all since joining Lyon. Players can change. It's up to Katoto to prove she can.

Jule Brand is another suspected signing. She's young and has potential, but it's fair to question how she will handle high pressure games. I'm probably more excited about her than I am about Katoto but that's also because there isn't the fear that she will bring a live grenade into the locker room.

People have floated Melween Ndongala as a possible replacement for Carpenter and it bewilders me on so many levels. When Carpenter came in as a 20-year-old in August 2020, she had already played in a World Cup, she had already played in the Olympics, she had already several seasons in professional leagues. We didn't have the finished product - we still don't - but at least we knew what we were getting. Ndongala is just such a massive question mark. Lyon would be replacing an experienced right back with a 20-year-old who has played zero (0) international tournaments, zero (0) UWCL games. She has zero (0) goals and zero (0) assists. Furthermore, Lyon has always expected their outside backs to push forward in the attack. They do it with Carpenter, they did it with Bronze, they did it with Perisset, they did it with Bremer. This isn't a new thing. A right back who rarely ventures up is so contrary to Lyon's typical style of play.

Social Media Abuse

I usually have a pretty fixed policy of not disclosing people’s social media. But I have had it with the social media behavior of certain Lyon “fans”. I am fine with criticising a player’s bad performance as long as that criticism is done in good faith. Call them out for a bad performance all you want, just make sure you also call out other players when they don't perform well.

What I have no patience for is hypocrisy. So let’s go over these double standards.

Becho is a 21 year-old forward. Her stats read as follows: 2 goals on the season; 4 assists. Those numbers are far below what is acceptable by Lyon standards. And yet, there is barely any criticism from Twitter use narcyberg [x] [x], suri [x] [x], Anitaa [x] [x]. Where is the criticism of someone who, in terms of numbers, has absolutely no business being at Lyon? Does being an academy player excuse any and all bad performance in perpetuity? Is that where we are going? You can suck all you want as long as you went through the academy?

Marozsan has a stellar Lyon career from 2016 - 2020 but has dropped off a shocking amount since then. Let’s look at her statistics too: 0 goals; 7 assists. Let’s also check to see whether the usual suspects have commented on any lack of form from, say, January 2022 to present. [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

I also want to point out that narcyberg has managed to get blocked by Carpenter, who posts on Instagram an average of probably once a month and posts personal posts probably every six months, and by Svava, arguably one of the better recent signings and one of the most unproblematic players on the team. Pissing off Carpenter to the extent that you get blocked is typically reserved to a very specific type of Arsenal fan. Pissing off Svava to the extent you get blocked is evidence that you are a genuine asshole, acting like an asshole, for the sole purpose of being an asshole.

So barely a peep about two players who have underperformed by every metric. Let’s check out what she says to say about Ellie Carpenter [x] [x]. Quite a lot, it seems. And some of the stuff is so completely absurd. Vanessa Gilles fucked up beyond belief against Arsenal because she admitted, in her own words, that she couldn’t get her head in the game. Somehow narcyberg found a way to blame Carpenter for that performance.

Narcyberg has been attacking Carpenter for YEARS, to the point she gets blocked by the player, and yet the continuous pile-ons don’t stop. If you harass a player to the point you get blocked, you have gone too far. But Carpenter and Svava are foreigners, and Horan is a foreigner, and van de Donk is a foreigner, and Kang is a foreigner, and Montemurro is a foreigner … Suri also refuses to use Kang's first name correctly [x]. I believe there is a word for this behavior, I can't quite think of it.

I've also gone over Heaps' stats but here they are again. You can dislike her as a person, you can dislike her as a player, but what you cannot do is say she doesn't contribute to the team. A midfielder who is giving you 13 goals and 11 assists over a season is contributing. A 10 who has not scored since March 23, 2024 is not. Where is the criticism of Marozsan, a self-admitted slow player (which Heaps gets rightfully criticised for), and her flagrant lack of contributions?

Shitting on Heaps and Montemurro gives the same vibe as shitting on Korbin Albert: it's the popular thing to do. Like it or not, Korbin Albert is a good player. She is a good player with extremely bizarre and quite frankly insane religious views, but she is still a good player. I don't understand why it's so difficult for alleged "football fans" to separate the personal from the professional. You can dislike a person and their coaching decisions or whatever, sure, but that doesn't mean they are a bad player/person.

Let’s also talk about the social media abuse towards Montemurro: narcyberg [x] [x], WATCHELS [x] [x], Damien [x] [x], lattesfc [x] [x], Anita [x] [x].

But before we get into that, let’s go over Lyon’s league statistics under his tenure: 20 wins/2 draws/0 losses/ 96 goals scored/7 goals conceded. How does that compare to previous seasons? Let’s take a look:

2023/2024 (Bompastor): 20 wins / 1 draw / 1 loss / 82 goals scored / 13 goals conceded

2022/2023 (Bompastor): 20 wins / 1 draw / 1 loss / 69 goals scored / 9 goals conceded

2021/2022 (Bompastor): 21 wins / 1 draw / 0 losses / 79 goals scored / 8 goals conceded

2020/2021 (Vasseur): 20 wins / 1 draw / 1 loss / 78 goals scored / 6 goals conceded

2019/2020 (Vasseur): 14 wins / 2 draws / 0 losses / 67 goals scored / 4 goals conceded

2018/2019 (Pedros): 20 wins / 2 draws / 0 losses / 89 goals scored / 6 goals conceded

2017/2018 (Pedros): 21 wins / 1 draw / 0 losses / 104 goals scored / 5 goals conceded

Now I confess I am not an expert in mathematics but I do believe that means that in terms of offensive, Montemurro had the second best showing since Pedros in 2017/2018. But as I said earlier, the early exit in the Coupe de France and the humiliation against Arsenal justifies the firing. You can't have that kind of performance and keep your job. You just can't.

I also want to point out that if you are going to continuously bitch about a team and act like you are on the board of directors and in charge of making decisions, the absolute bare minimum you can do as a so-called "fan" is get the name of the team right. I cannot put the bar any lower here. If you can’t be bothered to spell Lyon’s government name correctly, shut the fuck up and watch another team.

The future

One of the greatest writers of our time once asked where do we go now, and that's a valid question. And the truth is, we don't know. I don't think we'll know for a while. Le Progres contemplated what things could look like next season and pondered whether the majority of academy players who were out on loan will replace the more experienced players who left, but that requires such a massive gamble on Lyon's part.

We'll get some answers on Monday after Ponsot and Kang's press conference. Will we recognize this team in August? Will we even want to? Kang is asking an awful lot of us, and hasn't really given us a reason to trust her. It's gotten to a point where I think fans have the right to demand something concrete. Promises are nice but what they are not is an eternal pass for lack of deliverables.

Link to Google Docs/Excel spreadsheet where you can check out a player's stats should you so desire:

Lyon Stats Excel

#all good love stories start in the rain #I joked about hitting 10k and was only 2k off it #oh well good to have goals for next time I guess #but also I write for a living 8k is NOTHING for me #8k but probably half of it is me unloading on certain twitter users

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