Though http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Olympique-Lyonnais-c40130 failed to qualify for the Champions League, Les Gones have ended 2011/2012 season on a high
Although Lyon finished fourth in the campaign and failed to qualify for next year’s Champions League, seven-time French champions can take pride in what they have achieved. Before the start of 2011/2012 campaign, not many people were expecting them to perform
so well.
After a dismal 2010/2011 season, president of the club, Jean-Michel Aulas sacked Claude Puel, the coach of Lyon at that time. The Frenchman endured a miserable three-year trophy-less tenure at Stade de Gerland. Jean-Michel Aulas lost his patience with the
Frenchman and vowed to replace him with a top coach.
However, instead of appointing a world class manager, Olympique Lyonnais appointed Remi Garde, who was technical director of Lyon’s youth academy at that time. Appointment of an inexperienced coach raised many eyebrows and critics wrote off any chances of
Lyon performing well in near future.
Remi Garde, a former Lyon and Arsenal player vowed to build a team for the future. The Frenchman vowed to end OL’s misery and promised to bring the glory days back to Les Gones. However, top- priority of the Frenchman was to help Lyon qualify for the next
year’s Champions League.
During the 2009/2010 campaign, Olympique Lyonnais reached the semi-finals of Champions League for the first time. However, Les Gones endured a miserable 2011/2012 Champions League campaign this time around, where they were knocked out by Cypriot side, APOEL
F.C.
On the domestic front, Olympique Lyonnais were performing relatively better. Until Christmas, Les Gones were contenders for Ligue 1 title as well as for the Coupe de la Ligue. However, injuries to certain key players and a dip in form saw them lose out on
both competitions.
Lyon faced a huge amount of criticism when Les Gones decided to sell their star player, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Yoann-Gourcuff-c37416, Pjanic began appearing as a substitute. Just before the start of 2011/2012 campaign,
the talented Bosnian midfielder was sold to Italian side, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Roma-c31603.
However, Yoann Gourcuff failed miserably at the club and failed to live up to the hype surrounding him. Remi Garde promoted quite a few players from Lyon’s youth academy, but, that was not enough to help Lyon achieve the targets set for them.
At the end of the campaign, Olympique Lyonnais finished fourth in Ligue 1, ten points behind third-placed Lille. As only top three teams from Ligue 1 qualify for the lucrative Champions League, Lyon narrowly missed out on that.
While talking to reporters, the coach of the club, Remi Garde blamed the inconsistency of his team for failure to qualify for Europe’s premier club competition but vowed to come back stronger next year as the Frenchman believes that his young side is in
a period of transition.
"It's not the end of the club and it's not the end of the world – we are in a transition period."
Although Les Gones have failed to achieve their pre-set targets, Lyon’s campaign cannot be regarded as failure at all. According to the coach, Remi Garde, the team performed well despite missing so many key players on a regular basis. While expressing his
disappointment on not qualifying for the next year’s Champions League, Frenchman has vowed to change the fortunes of club in near future.
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