A fan’s guide – the club from early doors to today
Seven-time successive league winners from 2002 to 2008, Olympique Lyonnais rose from the second tier to major European contenders thanks to owner/chairman Jean-Michel Aulas. This local businessman would pick up the likes of Michael Essien and Florent Malouda cheaply from rival French clubs, get a couple of great seasons out of them, then sell them on for a serious profit. Graduates of the club’s academy include Karim Benzema, Hatem Ben Arfa and Alexandre Lacazette.
Though OL, as they are known, later lost domestic dominance to Paris Saint-Germain, they gained a fabulous stadium, the Groupama Stadium, aka Parc Olympique Lyonnais. The arena, unveiled in 2016, forms part of a football-based empire known as Parc OL, aka OL Land, in Décines-Charpieu, 12km east of Lyon.
As well as the Euros that year, Aulas’ football palace staged the Women’s World Cup final of 2019 and was scheduled to host a dozen games as part of the 2024 Olympics, including the semi-finals of the men’s and women’s tournaments. Aulas also oversaw the development of Olympique Lyonnais’ women’s team to become the most successful in France and the most titled in Europe.
In 2022, the septuagenarian Aulas bowed out, selling OL to digital entrepreneur John Textor a year after the American had bought 40% of Crystal Palace. The farewell was emotional, fittingly involving the women’s team he had created back in 2004, lifting their tenth French Cup.
In his 36 years steering OL, Aulas not only garnered dozens of trophies but elevated Olympique Lyonnais Féminin to a top-class, professional level, setting an example for the rest of Europe to follow. At heart, he remained a fan, joining the ultras in the Virage Nord to experience an OL game towards the end of his remarkable tenure.
With roots back to the early 1900s, today’s Olympique Lyonnais were founded from an amalgam of local teams in 1950. A year later, OL won the second division.
The club spent most of the next 30 years in the top flight, winning the cup three times. Memorable European games included a 4-4 away goals win over Spurs in 1967 and a semi-final appearance in 1964.
Key players included Jean Djorkaeff, Nestor Combin and, the hero of the 1960s, Fleury Di Nallo. His successor in the 1970s was the equally bullish Bernard Lacombe.
By the 1980s, OL were on the wane. It took the arrival in 1987 of Aulas to launch ‘OL-Europe’, a plan to push the club back into the limelight – and back into Europe. OL, ‘Les Gones’ to their fans, the ‘Bad Gones’, became a popular phenomenon along the lines of Olympique Marseille a decade earlier.
Promoted in 1989 with Jean Tigana as coach, OL finished league runners-up in 1995. Goals by Florian Maurice and big-name signing Sonny Anderson saw progress in the UEFA Cup and Champions League.
The arrival of Jacques Santini as coach in 2000 brought unexpected Champions League victories over Olympiacos and Bayern Munich. The next season, in the title clash with Lens, Pierre Laigle broke away to score the decisive goal and send the Gerland into ecstasy. OL had won their first championship.
After Santini’s departure, Lyon continued to dominate at home but show inconsistency in Europe. A 2-1 win over Inter in Milan was followed by defeat in freezing Trondheim.
Over the next four years, Lyon topped their groups that featured Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Real Madrid (twice), with key performances from stalwart winger Sidney Govou and free-kick specialist Juninho – only to fall in the early knock-out stages. Most memorable was victory over Real Madrid, mainly thanks to goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, in 2010. Bayern then proved too much in the semi-final.
Awash with Qatari money, PSG took the firm grip on Ligue 1 that Lyon once held. All the same, OL didn’t finish below the top five for 20 years, a quite remarkable record.
2015-16, though, could have been a different story. Falling out of the top ten around Christmas, Lyon brought in ex-OL midfielder Bruno Génésio as coach. Transformation isn’t the word. First came the unveiling of the Parc Olympique Lyonnais, the long-awaited new stadium soon to host six matches at Euro 2016.
Then, from February, OL went on a 14-game streak of 11 wins, two draws and one narrow defeat, a run that culminated with the 6-1 destruction of Monaco, Lyon’s nearest rivals for a group stage spot in the Champions League 2016-17, behind Paris Saint-Germain. Although OL barely laid a glove on PSG all season, their 2-1 win over the nouveaux riches from Paris was voted ‘Match of the Season’ by readers of Lyon daily Le Progrès.
In a tight group, Lyon narrowly lost out on a knock-out spot in the Champions League but went on a scoring spree in the Europa League. Prolific victories swept OL to the semi-final. Two goals in as many minutes by an irrepressible Lacazette almost pegged back the aggregate score after a heavy defeat to Ajax – but it wasn’t enough.
With Lacazette sold to Arsenal, Génésio still had the coaching chops to coax match-winning performances from Memphis Depay, whose hat-trick against Nice assured Champions League qualification for 2018-19. Depay then combined with captain Nabil Fekir, another Lyon graduate, to embarrass English champions Manchester City at the Etihad. The 2-1 win was no more than Lyon deserved – although three subsequent draws exposed defensive frailty.
The departure of Génésio in May 2019 paved the way for former Arsenal defender Sylvinho and his compatriot, all-time Lyon hero Juninho, to forge ahead with a new coaching partnership. It proved disastrous, hardly helped by the sale of three key players, including Fekir.
Barely two months into the campaign, the wheels came off and it required the steady hand of Rudi Garcia to push Lyon back up the table and through the group stage of the Champions League.
A pulsating 1-0 win over Juventus at the Groupama Stadium in February set things up perfectly for a best-ever showing in Europe’s premier competition – until the season was forced to close.
The controversial decision to freeze Ligue 1 in March, OL looking forward to six home games and four away, meant no subsequent European berth by league placing the following season.
A League Cup final with PSG, initially put on hold, was played out in front of 3,500 at the Stade de France, a goalless affair with PSG, Bertrand Traoré seeing his spot-kick saved by Keylor Navas in the shoot-out. The subsequent winning strike proved to be the last shot in the competition, France’s League Cup disbanded thereafter.
Brushed aside by eventual winners Bayern in the Champions League semi-final of 2020, OL kept faith with Garcia, who took Lyon within touching distance of the title, a 1-0 win at PSG the highlight of an unbeaten run from September to January, Memphis Depay in prolific form before his move to Barcelona.
A shock home defeat to Metz by a single late goal took the wind of Lyon’s sails, and OL eventually settled for a place in the Europa League after a 3-2 ding-dong win by Nice in Lyon in the last game. Without Depay or Saudi-bound Garcia in 2021-22, Lyon had a league point deducted for a bottle being thrown at Marseille’s Dimitri Payet that November before the match had barely started.
When departing chairman Jean-Michel Aulas gave a farewell speech in front of Lyon’s Virage Nord end at an earlier game, as well as thanking them after 36 memorable years, he pleaded with supporters to ‘uphold the values of OL’. Incoming owner John Textor, an American entrepreneur extending his football empire across the Channel from his significant share in Crystal Palace, seemed to understand little of ultra culture in France.
In the wave of shocking violence that swept French football in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, Lyon’s notorious following often led the way – OL were even thrown out of the French Cup after their fans managed to stop the game at Paris FC.
Under Peter Bosz, Lyon still made the quarter-finals of the Europa League, where a routine win by West Ham at the Groupama Stadium ended interest in the season. With Aulas out of the door and OL in foreign ownership, an old hand returned to steady the ship: Alexandre Lacazette.
Released by Arsenal, where he had spent five successful seasons, the Lyon-born and -raised striker soon became the second-highest scorer in OL history, surpassing Bernard Lacombe’s 149-goal milestone.
Teaming up with fellow Lyon academy graduate, Bradley Barcola, who had not long broken into the senior side, Lacazette hit four goals in a memorable 5-4 win over Montpellier, helping to push his overall total of 31 for the season.
Selling Barcola to PSG for €45 million in August 2023, OL relied on a still prolific Lacazette to lift them into a European spot by May 2024, failing to qualify via the French Cup, a Barcola-inspired PSG beating Lyon 2-1 in the final. OL’s goal came from young Irish centre-back Jake O’Brien, perhaps not the last player to hop over the Channel to Lyon from Textor-owned Crystal Palace.
Stadium Guide
The field of dreams – and the story behind it
At the height of Lyon’s hegemony, shortly after the last of seven consecutive titles in 2008, club president Jean-Michel Aulas revealed his plans for OL Land. Comprising a 59,000-capacity stadium, hotels and a leisure centre, it was sited at Décines-Charpieu, out towards the airport.
Costing some €410 million, the project was announced nearly two years before France won hosting rights for Euro 2016. Under several working titles – Stade des Lumières, Grand Stade de Lyon – the arena was eventually given the name Parc Olympique Lyonnais. Later, this became the sponsored Groupama Stadium.
Work began in 2012, the first stone was laid in 2013 and OL opened the stadium against Troyes in January 2016. Crowds have often surpassed 55,000 – only Marseille can claim better. The stadium has also hosted major international rugby.
End to end, though, this is a soccer arena, with home fans behind each goal and the AirFibr hybrid grass pitch up close to the spectators. Sound bounces off the photovoltaic roof to create a cauldron of noise for the match-long call-and-response chants of hard-core Bad Gones supporters in the Virage Nord – OL have an arena they can be proud of.
A corner of the Virage Sud is allocated to visiting supporters, for major games sections 428-431 of the upper tier, accessed through gates Q and R. Smaller groups are placed in the lower tier, sections 124-125, same gates.
getting there
Going to the stadium – tips and timings
For 2.5hrs before kick-off and 1hr after the final whistle, shuttle trams serve the stadium. Look out for the red N (‘Navette Tramway’) sign near Part-Dieu station (exit on the Rhône Express side). Journey time 25min.
Regular transport is provided by tramway 3 from Part-Dieu (Rhône Express side; every 10-30mins) to Décines Grand Large (journey time 20mins).
Signs for the Parc lead you down rue Francisco Ferrer to a roundabout, where you turn left. Allow 10mins from the tramway stop.
getting in
Buying tickets – when, where, how and how much
With a stadium capacity of 59,000 and average gates around 35,000, availability is rarely an issue unless PSG, Marseille or St-Étienne happen to be visiting. Online, the club and agencies Fnac, Carrefour and Auchan distribute, along with outlets at shops such as Boul’dingue secondhand record store in town at 8 rue du Palais de Justice.
Tickets are also sold at the two club shops, in town at 104-106 rue Edouard Herriot (Mon-Sat 10am-7pm) near Bellecour métro, and behind the Tribune Nord (Mon-Sat 10am-7pm, Sun 10am-6pm and match days).
Prices start around €30 in the upper tiers and €50 in the lower.
For English-language enquiries, use the club’s Facebook page, Twitter account or try the Chat function on the contact page.
what to buy
Shirts, kits, merchandise and gifts
The club’s main store (Mon-Sat 10am-7pm, Sun 10am-6pm and match days) is at the Parc Olympique, at the main entrance approached along the allée des Lumières walk of fame directly opposite Le Couëron restaurant.
The club also has a two-floor store downtown (104-106 rue Edouard Herriot, Mon-Sat 10am-7pm), a minute from Bellecour métro station.
For 2024-25, the OL home shirt features two stripes of blue and red running from the collar and fading into the main colour of white. Away tops are black with adidas stripes of red along one shoulder and blue along the other – and, like the home shirt, with similar piping of red and blue down each side.
You can also find posters showing OL shirts over the years, sets of OL coasters and OL-branded mule slippers.
Stadium tours
Explore the ground inside and out
There are two kinds of stadium tour (Sat-Sun & daily during school holidays, 10.30am & 4pm): Mini (€15/discounts €8) by the pitch and Classic (€22/€11), including the dressing rooms and dug-out. Both incorporate the club museum (Sat 10am-7pm, Sun 10am-6pm & school holidays).
On match days, visitors must be in possession of a match ticket to go on the stadium tour.
Enquire about English-language tours via the club’s Facebook page, Twitter account or Chat function on the contact page.
Where to Drink
Pre-match beers for fans and casual visitors
Just behind the Tribune Nord on avenue Jean-Jaurès, friendly, affordable Le Couëron has been run by Véronique and Jean-Jacques Mirzoian for 35 years. On match days, a makeshift outdoor bar creates pre-game atmosphere. Even closer to the stadium here, the KOPSTER Hotel adapts its menu for match days. Reservations are preferred.
On level 2 of the Tribune Nord, the Brasserie des Lumières operates by VIP package (only on match days, and standard reservations on non-match lunchtimes (+33 4 72 10 00 00, Mon-Sat noon-2pm). Mounted TV screens may distract diners from Jérôme Bernigaud’s gastronomic inventions – you’re in the culinary capital of France.
