Lyon Sign Delgado and Crosas

By: Inara | January 11th, 2008

The club’s first two winter recruits were presented today during an afternoon press conference. The first, Cesar Delgado of Cruz Azul, has been linked with Lyon since October. The second, Marc Crosas of Barcelona, was a last minute loan. Delgado’s transfer fee is €7.25m whereas Crosas’s loan is for six months, and as far as I’m aware, without an option to buy. Read excerpts from the press conference here.

Some details on Delgado and Crosas:

Name: Cesar Delgado, “Chelito”
Age: 26
Position: Winger/Striker
Previous clubs: Rosario Central, Cruz Azul

Don’t let the fact that he played in Mexico fool you. The Argentine international had a long and successful career with Cruz Azul, one of Mexico’s best clubs. A talented winger, he has often been noted for his superb ball control, dribbling, and precise crosses, and though he is a small player, he’s also very fast - just the sort of player Lyon like on the flanks. In 129 league games with Cruz Azul, he’s notched 54 goals, and Lyon are confident that with the service he will now receive from the likes of Juninho & Co, that tally will only increase.

However, his main purpose here is to support the striker, and he is good at fulfilling that role too. Lyon are hoping that he can combine well with Hatem Ben Arfa, Karim Benzema, and Sidney Govou to make the Lyon attack even more efficient than it is now, especially with Kader Keita away at the African Nations Cup.

He’s earned 20 caps with Argentina (and two goals), which is no mean feat when you consider the players Argentina has available to them. He missed out on the World Cup due to an untimely injury and has been working his way back into the squad. He is also an Olympic gold medalist with his NT and has played in the finals of Copa America. Strangely, for all his awards and honors, he has yet to win a domestic national title, so that makes him doubly eager to come to Lyon - to win a title and to play in the Champions League as well.

I’m happy to welcome him to Lyon. Despite the fact that he’s unknown in Europe, I think he’ll fit into Lyon quite well. But I ask only one thing of him: to get rid of his unibrow. Cesar, that is just not cool.

Name: Marc Crosas
Age: 20
Position: Midfielder
Previous clubs: Barcelona

A talented Barcelona youth academy product, Crosas hasn’t been able to cement a place on the senior team just yet (unsurprising when you look at who he’s competing against), and so it was decided that he would go out on loan to get some much needed experience. So you can imagine everyone’s surprise when it turned out that Crosas would be coming to Lyon for just that.

Besides a handful of appearances for Barca’s senior team, he’s spent the majority of his career playing with Barcelona B, the youth squad. Noted for the quality of his technical play, he’s often been compared to Xavi and more frequently, Pep Guardiola. He’s also a Spanish international at the youth levels and has been earmarked for a place amongst the other great Spanish midfielders currently on the senior team (ahem…at least that’s what Barca is hoping).

Normally I would welcome Crosas with open arms, except his loan just doesn’t make much sense. If Lyon don’t have the option to buy, I don’t see what the point is in having Crosas, who has gone on record as stating that he wants to return to Barca. As talented as he might be, I don’t see him contributing much, and it’s not like Lyon have a shallow midfield bench - in fact, the opposite. Though Lyon have said they will play Crosas and will give him the chance to win his first ever senior domestic title, as things stand, Crosas is fourth or fifth on the depth chart. And he’s not even a DM, which is what Lyon need. Oh, and he’s also cuptied!

It’s also bad for Crosas because he left Barcelona in search of playing time. Yet his situation hasn’t improved - in fact, I would say the opposite. Given the nonform of Xavi and a spate of injuries, Crosas would have had some opportunities to play with Barca this season - probably the same amount he would have at Lyon. So…we are all left confused. But then again, I’m not Lyon’s technical director, and it’s too much to ask that a layperson like me could grasp the subtleties of Jean-Michel Aulas’s visions.

So welcome, Marc! He’s hoping you learn from Juninho and develop an understanding with Lyon’s other young talents, and who knows, maybe at the end of six months, you’ll want to stay at Lyon!

And please don’t believe the rumor that the Crosas deal took place so Barca would have first refusal on Benzema. We all know Aulas enough by now that he would never give any club first refusal on his best players. And let’s get real: Crosas isn’t even worth 25% of Benzema.