Official: Hugo Lloris is a Lyon Player

By: Inara | June 2nd, 2008

It’s done! Lyon have officially announced the arrival of their newest goalkeeper in a press conference. And now that there is no possible way for other clubs to steal Hugo Lloris from under our noses, I can finally get a good night’s sleep (and so can Lloris now that he’ll be joining his BFF Ederson).

Lloris will sign a five year contract, and Nice will receive €8.5m, including incentives (performance based, I’m sure). I was expecting the price to be higher, but instead, Aulas has given Nice first refusal on Loic Remy in the event that he leaves Lyon this summer.

Some details on Lloris:

Name: Hugo Lloris
Age: 21
Position: Goalkeeper
Previous clubs: Nice

Lloris is one of France’s most talented young players. Despite being so young, he is the second best French goalkeeper currently playing, right after Gregory Coupet. He was seriously underrated because he was at Nice, a club that doesn’t receive much media exposure, but just watch – the minute he starts putting in stellar performances for Lyon, the vultures will start hovering over the Gerland.

At Nice, he’s played for their senior team since 2005 and has been their #1 keeper for two and a half seasons. He singlehandedly kept them in the topflight last year, and this season, he helped Nice end the year with the league’s best defense (he conceded only 30 goals – Lyon conceded 37).

Now imagine Lloris at Lyon: he’ll play behind a much better defense and a way better midfield – call me an optimist, but if all things go well next year, clean sheets will be the status quo.

I expect him to go to the 2010 World Cup though he will face competition with Steve Mandanda, another terrific young talent who is at Marseille. But Lloris has the next two years to prove to Domenech (or whoever else the manager is) that he deserves to be France’s #1.

This guy is going to be one of the world’s best goalkeepers. I’m not even being biased – I’ve been talking about Lloris since I started writing on The Offside. In fact, I’m tempted to take partial credit for his signing – I’m pretty sure those Lyon officials got really tired of my thrice daily emails ~~begging~~ politely asking them to buy Lloris.

And here is that youtube clip I promised: