Govou: Juninho’s Ego To Blame

By: Inara | June 8th, 2007

Gerard Houllier’s departure hasn’t stemmed the bitterness amongst the players.

The latest to air the club’s dirty laundry is Sidney Govou. In an interview for Lyon Mag, Govou blasted Juninho and his super big ego, which has no place in the “one-for-all” environment that is Lyon.

Juninho and Govou have been present in all six of Lyon’s title-winning campaigns.

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

“The club had difficulties managing the egos. There were many relationship problems in the team,” he said. “The worst was concerning Juninho. From the beginning of the season Gerard Houllier (the coach) and Jean-Michel Aulas (the president) decided to proclaim Juninho as the star of the team. Personally I didn’t care but that posed many problems for some of the team’s main players.”

“In the end we understood that there was him and the rest. That ended up damaging what had made Lyon strong over so many years: group unity.”

“We all saw that he was more nervous and he started to berate us on the pitch. The other players stopped listening to Juninho.”

JuniRed Sadly, this entirely believable. Juninho is Lyon’s iconic player. So he does get a fair amount of “star” status, or at least the handicapped version of it in France. When the team plays well, he gets most of the credit. But when they play poorly, it’s also his fault.

During Lyon’s crap streak, Juninho’s increasing stress was evident on the pitch, especially in how frequently he lost his temper with not only opposing teams but his own teammates. This season he received 11 yellow cards and the second red card of his entire career (picture on the left).

Then there was his confrontation with Houllier over the arrival of Baros, and rumors that he wouldn’t extend his contract unless Houllier left (to no one’s surprise, he signed a contract extension 24 hours before Houller announced his departure).

And let’s not forget his morbid comments after the loss to Roma in the CL (which ended Lyon’s 27 game unbeaten streak at home) and the loss to Bordeaux in the Coupe de la Ligue.

Don’t get me wrong. Juninho’s heart bleeds for OL, and he has displayed a kind of loyalty to his team that has grown quite rare in Europe. But he’s also human, and he possesses quite a bit of power amongst his teammates and with the management.

But you know what’s really depressing? The fact that the players are going public with internal discord. That is the biggest sign that something is seriously wrong with the club. Lyon have suffered crises before, but back then, players always took care to be unified in public.

Let’s hope that this summer will see a rebirth of that team solidarity that Lyon is so famous for.