Olympique Lyonnais Cafe II [R]

[lefutur]

i thought Crosas and Delgado looked good too. Crosas made some nice passes and looked like he was getting pretty comfortable. Delgado made some nice runs and yes, he could have scored, but was maybe too selfless. you get the sense that he's starting to grow in confidence slowly.

[Inara]

The U17 Euro Championship will be starting today. This is the same tournament that Benzema, Ben Arfa, Nasri, and Menez won four years ago. This year, Lyon have five players in the competition, and two of them (Yanis Tafer and Clement Grenier) have just signed their first pro contracts with Lyon.

Eurosport will be broadcasting nearly all of France's matches. Tomorrow, France vs. Republic of Ireland is the tournament opener, and you can catch it tomorrow at 10 AM if you want to see who France's future stars are.

[Gnafron]

I hope they'll broadcast Perrin on the guillotine :D

[guignol]

things are looking very bad for him now after the lackluster performance in nice :mad: and girondins last minute victory :mad: :mad: in marseilles!

[Inara]

I'm SUCH a stalker.

I was on Facebook last night, and I randomly decided to search for OL players. I came across Jeremy Berthod, and from his friends list, I found several others (most of whom are in the reserves, plus some of the girls). But Sidney Govou and Miralem Pjanic are on facebook!

Next thing you know, I'll be looking up their addresses in the phonebook.

[lefutur]

I'm SUCH a stalker.

I was on Facebook last night, and I randomly decided to search for OL players. I came across Jeremy Berthod, and from his friends list, I found several others (most of whom are in the reserves, plus some of the girls). But Sidney Govou and Miralem Pjanic are on facebook!

Next thing you know, I'll be looking up their addresses in the phonebook.

haha. did you try to add them as friends or send them an email? I have Eric Abidal still as a friend on my myspace.

[Inara]

I thought it would be a little creepy if I added the kids, they are like ten years younger than me. But I did add Govou (I have no shame). We'll see what happens.

Though I did consider about sending one of the kids a message (Romain Beynie actually) to ask if I could interview him for my blog, but I don't know enough French to string together a coherent sentence, and I really don't want to creep him out. Even though it's technically anonymous creeping. But still.

[AfrcnHrbMan]

ha lyon players on facebook! i never thought of that lol. Oh you should drop the kid a line about the interview, im sure he would appreciate the attention. He is an athlete and you do report on the club so i don't see anything creepy about it.

[SportBoy333]

I'd try to get as many player interviews as possible. You explain to them that you are an American and tell them that French soccer gets very little publicity here and that people are eager to know more about it. You tell them that OL doesnt have a huge fanbase in the US and that you are doing your duty to help spread the word. I bet these OL players, even the young ones would be surprised to find out how many people in the US who follow soccer do not really care about or follow French soccer as a whole. Judging by this site, Arsenal seems to be the most popular foreign team by far that American soccer fans support. You want to try to get OL more popular in that respect. Tell them you hate Arsenal and ManU:)

[Inara]

Thanks for the advice, SB. I hope they'll consider helping me spread L1 love. If I can get one of them to agree, then I can ask my readers what questions they want to ask. It could be a lot of fun. Except I have no idea which one to ask.

*crosses fingers*

[guignol]

this is a great idea, and though i'm not sure how i can best help, but in weeks 35 and 36 i'll be in town and free to go down to T-V and maybe ask some questions.

[Inara]

What I'm thinking is emailing some of these players on facebook, explaining what it is I do, and ask if they'd be willing to answer some questions for my readers. Mostly it would be on what it's like at the academy, the transition to the pros, and what their aspirations are. I won't ask them things they might feel uncomfortable asking (though I am absolutely DYING to know about the Ben Arfa/Benzema thing).

I might need some help with translations since my French sucks and I'm pretty sure most don't know English, if you are down for that.

[guignol]

obviously you're not going to get anything juicy out of them, my guess is that since the govou-juni thing there are very strict guidelines about talking to anyone resembling the press.

i'm truly interested in helping, but it's hard for me to promise anything... the last great idea i had to help out was to try to contact bruno bonnell when lefutur was thinking of an OL fan club in NYC. obviously i'm a couple years late on that already.

since my kids go to school right up against T-V, my son sees the academy kids almost every day, when he has PE they even run together sometimes as both use the parc de gerland for that.

and à propos de rien, he saw benzema yesterday in OUR neighborhood (we're just across the park from bron) driving a mini cooper! junior was very impressed by his calm and courteous driving... he even used his turn signal, which was not very french of him!

[Inara]

Well, we'll see how it goes. It's more than possible that they aren't allowed to give out interviews on their own, but I am hoping otherwise. I got Jo to do the translating (plus he's friends with Romain Beynie), so maybe that will help.

That's awesome that your son gets to see them. And Benzema driving a minicooper? I never would have thought!

[Kazuma]

I hope I'm not intruding. :o

Inara, I am a student in journalism right now and you are right to presume that they aren't allowed to do interviews on their own. Many sports teams have media relations departments that you can reach the players through. I'm sure that one as big as Lyon will have one and your best bet would be to try and reach them through that channel. I don't know what Lyon will say if you do contact them but good luck if you consider it.

[Inara]

Thanks for the idea, but that's too much effort for me. Mine is only a casual blog, and I can't devote that much time to it - plus if I went through all that trouble, they better be letting me talk to Juninho!

Facebook was convenient, so that's why I thought about it.

[Kazuma]

Ah understandable then. Yeah, it is a hassle though.

[Gotham PSG]

The other day I was checking for the results of the intertoto cup, and started wondering for french clubs getting access to various cups and wondered who the hell won the CdF... I honestly couldn't remember, I knew somebody beat us, but it took me a while to remember it was LOL, lol
And going around BigSoccer, I thought it would be fun to remember that great night, after all, it was a pretty entertaining match, I was really glad that Paris was able to up its game to at least match Lyon's (let's be honest, maybe Aulas always gets lucky breaks from the refs against us, but his club is better overall)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5jz8u_finale-psg-lyon-echange-parisien_sport
It is so nice to see so many footix in one place :p
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5jp03_olpsg-le-speaker-own-les-supporters_fun







aaaalalala, I'm messin with ya, I just can't wait for the new season to start, it is annoying to pass a whole summer simply wondering if we'll fare better next season. And praying we get drawn with Ronnie's Milan in the UEFA cup, that will sure be fun.

[guignol]

this gleaned from maxifoot:

the center back for the Gones, Cris (age 31, 13 Ligue 1 matches 1n 2007/2008, 1 but) is preparing for his 5th season in Lyon. In the collumns of France Football, the Brazilian international brésilien admits that numerous limits were overstepped last year. "After the winter break, we slacked off a bit. As we had a 9 point lead, the team lost some motivation. We didn't make the same effort on the field as in the first half of the season. We were dispersed, everyone playing for himself. Players arrived at whatever hour, dressed any old way, there was no discipline at all. It was the first time i'd seen such a thing at OL."


i suspected such, and i hope the policeman is going to crack some heads.

[lefutur]

this gleaned from maxifoot:

the center back for the Gones, Cris (age 31, 13 Ligue 1 matches 1n 2007/2008, 1 but) is preparing for his 5th season in Lyon. In the collumns of France Football, the Brazilian international brésilien admits that numerous limits were overstepped last year. "After the winter break, we slacked off a bit. As we had a 9 point lead, the team lost some motivation. We didn't make the same effort on the field as in the first half of the season. We were dispersed, everyone playing for himself. Players arrived at whatever hour, dressed any old way, there was no discipline at all. It was the first time i'd seen such a thing at OL."


i suspected such, and i hope the policeman is going to crack some heads.

and if he doesn't Puel will!