Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa Can’t Leave Until Lyon Win the Champions League
By: Inara | November 20th, 2007
Jean-Michel Aulas is a man with many plans.
He has a plan to stamp brand OL all over the world. A plan to make Lyon the best at everything. A plan to revolutionize French football in not just the men’s division but the women’s and youth divisions as well. A plan to make Sepp Blatter cry. A plan to save the environment. A plan to make Pape Diouf insane. A plan to raze St. Etienne to the ground. A plan to build the coolest stadium in France. A plan to make Lyon the sole suppliers of the French NT.
So yes, he has a lot of plans.
Naturally, a guy who does this much planning won’t let two of the best players at his club walk out the door anytime soon. The young men in question, Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa, are currently causing clubs like Milan and Barcelona to pant on the Gerland’s doorstep like dogs in heat and offer copious amounts of money (but not yet obscene). Too bad that Lyon don’t need the money. Hee hee.
It’s not a coincidence that Lyon have steadily grown stronger every year. Slowly but surely, Lyon are assembling a team worthy of being European champions. They had a rocky start this year, mostly due to injuries and Alain Perrin’s naivety, but they are back on track, and if they qualify for the knockout rounds, they stand their best chance ever at surpassing the quarterfinal hurdle.
Of course Benzema and Ben Arfa will leave one day, but not yet. Not until Lyon win the one trophy that Aulas covets above all others. Because these two young men can help make it happen. They will eventually surpass the players Lyon have previously coveted: David Trezeguet, Jose Antonio Reyes, Simao. They are better than the players who left: Florent Malouda, Ludovic Giuly, Frederic Kanoute.
They are Lyon’s future. Aulas didn’t spend the last 20 years building Lyon from nothingness to throw it away.
But if Milan and Barca really really really want Benzema and Ben Arfa, they can advance their case by failing miserably at the Champions League this year - but not before taking out all the other teams that would stand in Lyon’s way.
Just a thought.
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Tags: Champions League, Hatem Ben Arfa, Jean-Michel Aulas, Karim Benzema, Lyon, Team News and RumorsSubscribe
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Comments
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I hope this will happen, but Jean-Michel should extend Ben Arfa’s contract first. And give him Baros’ wage!
Posted from
Hong Kong
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Lyon - Barca won’t be shown in Australia. That is crap, just crap. Just leave.
Posted from
Australia -
I’m not so sure about Jean Michel Aulas, I think he’s more of a shrewd bussiness man than a visionary of winning the champs league.
Posted from
Ireland -
Salieri: I’m pretty sure Lyon have been working on extending Ben Arfa’s contract (though he extended until 2010 exactly one year ago). The club tends to stay pretty quiet about contract extensions until the ink is dried on paper.
Jordo: I’ll see what I can do about providing links. Lyon is hardly ever on TV, so I’m used to it by now.
Ush: Well, I think Aulas looks at it like this. Winning the CL = more money and more fame, which means more money. So for him, winning the CL is like opening a gateway to the Beverly Hills of the football world.
Posted from
United States -
Yes but winning the CL, usually requires spending money first. Him saying that the uefa cup competition would be good for lyon, before they are even out of the champs league, makes his ambitions very clear to me.
Posted from
Ireland -
Ush, I am sure Aulas still hopes to go through in CL. He said that for the UEFA in case of non-CL spot. He wanted to avoid a crash on the OL-group stock market if Lyon were eliminated. He tried to reassure the holders.
Still, Lyon is more likely to play UEFA than CL in my opinion. I think of it as a 40% chance qualification.
Posted from
Japan -
objectively i see qualification as 50-50. i think stuttgart is perfectly capable of helping us against rangers, (in fact on current form they should beat them like the redheaded stepchild) so all we need to do is win at ibrox. that may seem like a big order, but on paper there is still level of difference between the two clubs, and the first result you just have to throw out, this is not the same OL as then. and again on current form, we might just surprise barça, and that would mean a draw in the last match would suffice.
Posted from
France -
On current form?? We just lost to Marseille at home dude. That being said, Barcas away form this season is shocking.
Posted from
Ireland -
I kind of agree with Ush about Aulas. If Aulas really wanted to win the CL he would have hired the best coach possible and it wouldn’t have been Perrin. Aulas is a great president and gives good lip service and all of that but in my opinion his over-bearing personality is a negative when it comes to certain aspects of what actually transpires on the pitch. Didier Deschamps is CL finalist yet Aulas didnt want him as manager since he wanted someone sort of submissive and willing to take orders. To me thats a conflict of interests.
But if he can keep Ben Arfa and Benzema until 2010 or longer then he will have accomplished something very valuable.
Posted from
United States -
The problemis that Aulas keeps talking about winning the CL to please the shareholders whil he should have been straight up with them and explain how he plans on building the team of the future but that’s not something popular to say.
The emergence of benzema is a blessing for him because despite all the money they got, they didn’t buy a world-class striker.
NOw he should have told people it was a transitionning season and recruited less expensive players. I really believe they recruited like paris or marseille this year, only recruiting names to please casual fans with Grosso and Keita, like Paris recruited Gallardo and Marseille recruited Zenden..Posted from
France -
lefutur : Exactly. Submissive aside, lets not forget Perrin would be a hell of alot cheaper! He should have spent some money, and got a good coach that he could trust. Otherwise he may aswell just manage the team himself.
Posted from
United States -
Govou to Roma for Mancini? Who would have thunk that at the start of the season…But, I dont like buying Mancini, he is not needed. Govou being offloaded is tolerable to me though, he has been a great servant to the club, and with Remy, Karaaboue, Monsanto, Mounier and Roman Miguet all looking to break through, this may be a good thing. But he has taken on leadership on the field, so many variables to such a move.
Posted from
United States -
I don’t think the choice of Alain Perrin as a coach was a cheap choice. I agree that aulas and Lacombe wanted to have a coach they could keep control of, but the choice of Alain Perrin was quite clever in my opinion.
Why did they take Perrin and not someone else? simply because Perrin has a very good cup record as a coach. In a table league, he is an average coach, but on a cup match, he is very good. For the last season Lyon has always been doing very well in the group stage or in the Championnat, but everytime it came to cup matches, we were losing very quickly.
I am pretty confident that Lyon will go very far in the european cup they will be qualified for (UEFA or CL), as Perrin just likes those games and prepares his players well for those games.A good example is the peace cup. An average group phase with a loss against Reading, but in the end, he didn’t bottle up the big games (River Plate and Bolton).
Of course if Lyon doesn’t go through the group stage in CL, all that I said will be considered as irrelevant. But I do actually like Perrin.
Posted from
Japan -
I don’t buy that. Deschamps had much better cup pedigree, aswell as league with Juventus, he got Monaco to the CL final. I’m sure he was double the money at least that Perrin would be though. What cup has Perrin won apart from the French Cup last year??
Posted from
United States -
I guess they’ll never leave then ;-).
Benzema is going to be a world class player, I doubt they can keep him. Until 2/3 years, he is gone.
Milan really wants to sign him.Posted from
United States -
Hold on a minute aulas you cant say you want to win the champions league when your coaching staff are aiming for uefa cup football and you let players like diarra,essien,malouda,tiago,abidal and cacapa leave the club to be replaced by cheap nobodys.If you really want this, lets see you spend about 30-40 million in january or the summer oright. [by the way kleber anderson is absoloutly CRAP-get him out of the club for sure]
Posted from
United States -
Im a lyon fan through and through thats why players like kleber anderson are bollocks and sonny anderson are brilliant, because sonny cost 20 million and kleber cost 2 million. vercoutre-well he is SHIT.as for the striker situation-obafemi martins for me,center back-escude and alain perrin out Didier deshamps in please Aulas!
Posted from
United States -
last thing before i go- the genious juninho is 33 and may soon retire unfortunately, so surely a search now must start for a young extremely talented long term replacement init!
Posted from
United States -
to ronan : thats where players like Tales and William from Brazil come in ( there dubbed the next Juninho’s )
Posted from
United States
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