With the 75th anniversary of the club’s foundation being celebrated, a climate of anxiety fuelled by the uncertainty surrounding its future and the faint hope of qualification for the Champions League, the saturnal evening that lies ahead at Groupama Stadium promises to be an emotional one.
However, it is an entirely different event that is likely to bring tears to the eyes of many of the 55,000-plus Olympique Lyonnais fans expected to attend the curtain-raiser to the 2024-25 Ligue 1 season against Angers.
On the stroke of 11pm, when Stephanie Frappart blows the final whistle of the match, it will be time for Alexandre Lacazette to bid farewell to his lifelong club. The epilogue to an odyssey that began in 2003, the year he signed his first licence for the club, and which the 33-year-old enjoyed making history with one of the biggest names in the French league.
All Roads Lead to Lyon
Yet this is not the first time that Lacazette is about to fly the nest.
Back in 2017, the Lyon striker, whose departure had been on the cards for some time, bid farewell for the first time to a fan base as sad at his loss as they were proud of how far he had come. A demonstration of love that the kid from the 8th district returned in kind.
With a brace, to be precise, synonymous with his 99th and 100th Ligue 1 goals.
Lacazette then took off for England, joining Arsenal, where he would play for the next five years before returning to his hometown club. An obvious choice. After all, no one escapes their destiny.
But this time, eight years on, everything seems different. And that’s for the simple reason that this match, the 391st of his red-and-blue career, will well and truly be the last. Because the hope of a third comeback is non-existent – at least in a playing role. And perhaps that’s for the best.
However, with 90 minutes to go before his final bow, there are still plenty of things left for the Les Gones captain to achieve.
Closing the Loop
Among them, the possibility of seeing the No10 grab his 200th goal for Lyon is on everyone’s lips.
It has to be said that few players have reached such a milestone in the colours of the seven-time French champions. In fact, there is only one. One name, that of Fleury Di Nallo, an emblematic figure of French football in the 1960s, who became a legend at the Rhone club thanks to the 222 goals he scored in 494 appearances between 1960 and 1974. A great way to get a better idea of Lacazette’s place in OL’s history.
| Ligue 1 | National Cups | European Cup Qualification | European Cups | Total |
| 159 | 21 | 1 | 18 | 199 |
Does it also bring up a few regrets about the fact that he has not supplanted his predecessor? Perhaps. After all, Lacazette is a competitor. Nobody can take that away from him.
A Legend Neither Absolute nor Contested
For Olympique Lyonnais fans, Lacazette will always be in the conversation when it comes to voting for the club’s all-time best player. But can he be considered as such? It’s hard to say.
For while there is no debate about his status as a club legend, the latter has been attributed more to his individual exploits than to his collective accolades. It has to be said that his trophy cabinet is in no way comparable to those of some of his illustrious predecessors.
A French Cup, won in 2012, and a Champions Trophy, lifted the same year, weigh far less than the seven league titles won by Juninho, or the four won by Karim Benzema. But to his credit, Lacazette has never been as well surrounded as the club’s greatest glories. And this despite the fact that he has shared the pitch with a number of talented players.
His OL, for its part, has always lived in the shadow of the domination of a Paris Saint-Germain that has become a winning machine, but also in that of its past generations, to whom it has inevitably been regularly referred.
The Paradox of Lacazette’s Final Lap
One thing is certain, however, when it comes to the game against SCO, and that is that no result will allow Lacazette to add a line to his palmares. For that, it’s already too late. The train has already left the station.
An assessment quite different from the one that might have been drawn had OL’s destiny not been tragically turned on its head at Old Trafford last month. Ten historic minutes, a dramatic materialisation of the course of Lacazette’s Lyon career, of the “almost” conquest of a major trophy that he so richly deserved.
But that’s football. And when the time comes to pay tribute to him this Saturday night, there is no doubt that everyone will honour him in the best possible way.
As a legend.
