Lyon have long been number one in the world but now PSG could overtake
Photo:Stephanie Grossetete / Panoramic / imago images / PanoramiC
It almost became exciting. In the French women's football league Olympique Lyon had always won the championship for the past 13 years, but on March 14 of this year, on the 17th of a total of 22 match days in Division 1 Féminine, this supremacy threatened to crumble. Lyon, leaders of the table, had to face their rivals in Paris, three points separated the teams. OL had only won the first leg 1-0. A victory for PSG - and there would have been a rare showdown for the championship in the weeks that followed.
A lot of sports stories start and go like this this year: Nothing came of it. Because of the Covid 19 pandemic, the game was canceled, the remaining games of the season were also canceled - and Lyon was declared champions by the French Football Association. For Olympique it was the 14th title in a row. As if the competition hadn't come up against it. Everything seemed as it always was.
When PSG and OL play for a place in the final of the Champions League (8 p.m.) in the evening, that's also a kind of repetition for March 14th. It's about number one status in France, and that's also linked to supremacy in Europe. Last year Lyon had won the final of the premier class 4-1 against FC Barcelona, for Olympique it was the sixth title in ten years. But it seems like PSG could prevent such an easy walk-through this year.
Lyon starts, Paris wants to follow suit
These are completely new conditions for Olympique Lyon. Here they may not have invented women's football, but in Lyon they saw an opportunity as a club to stand up for men and women at the same time. For a long time, the men from OL were the measure of all things in French football, and in 2004 the women too.
In any case, the powerful club president Jean-Michel Aulas was prepared very early on to spend millions on the department. Since it was founded 16 years ago, it has drawn a number of top players into the club, even US superstars and world champions Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan have already played for the club. They didn't stay long, it was more of a greeting to the country of the multiple world champion. According to the motto: Europe is now also participating. And with that, greetings to all the other clubs in Europe: we get them all.
Lyon playmaker Marozsán (left) in the cup final against former PSG champion Formiga
Photo: PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFPToday the two best French players (Wendie Renard and Amandine Henry), the best German (Dzsenifer Marozsán) and possibly the world's best player (Ada Hegerberg; currently injured) are in the squad. The Norwegian Hegerberg alone should earn 400,000 euros a year. Because of her, OL is probably the best-known club in women's football in the world, and so the players are in a special spotlight. Marozsán, who has been in Lyon since 2016, even says she is better known in France than in Germany.
In Paris, you will have observed the development pretty closely, because you can now see a similar signature at PSG: more and more top players cavort in the squad. After the 2019 World Cup in France, which caused record numbers of viewers for Fifa and brought new sponsorship deals to the national league, the German national player Sara Däbritz also joined a club from France with Paris Saint-Germain.
Like PSG's men's department, the women's department is financed by money from Qatari investors, who have been running the club since 2011. But the women's team is more of an alternative to the men. The 25-year-old Däbritz belongs to a team that doesn't rely on the big names. The eternal Formiga from Brazil is playing for PSG, at the age of 42 she is still a regular player, but there are above all many French and international top talents by her side. This team has not yet reached its zenith.
But the results of the past season have shown that PSG has caught up strongly at Olympique Lyon. How much became clear in the cup final that was made up in early August - after 90 minutes and extra time it was 0-0, Lyon only prevailed on penalties. It has become a duel at eye level - and VfL Wolfsburg is waiting for the winner in the premier class final on Sunday.
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