Les Gones

Lore & Background

The club's nickname, Les Gones, translates to 'The Kids' in Lyon's regional dialect of Franco-Provençal. They have a long-standing rivalry with nearby team Saint-Étienne, against whom they contest Le Derby. Lyon was owned by French businessman Jean-Michel Aulas from June 1987 until it was purchased by American businessman John Textor in December 2022. As of the latest available information, John Textor remains the club's president.

In Their Own Story

The rain had stopped, but the Stade de France still glistened, the floodlights cutting through a thin mist over the pitch. In the north stand, a man in his fifties stood on a plastic seat, his blue scarf knotted around his neck, his voice raw from the last three songs. Around him, strangers pressed shoulder to shoulder, a sea of blue and white, all of them singing the same four words on repeat. A teenager next to him, no older than sixteen, had his phone out, recording, but he was singing too, eyes closed, swaying. The man clapped his hand on the boy's shoulder. They did not know each other. They did not need to. The whistle blew, the ball rolled toward the goal, and for a moment the entire stadium — eighty thousand people, a hundred thousand voices — became one body, one breath, one blue heartbeat. Then the net bulged, and the sound that came out of the stands was not quite a cheer. It was something older, something that tasted like the 1998 summer, like a father's voice on a television in Lyon, like a kid in Marseille hearing the name 'Zidane' and not understanding yet what it meant but feeling the room shake. The man on the seat lowered his arms. He was crying, though he would never admit it. The boy was screaming. The mist rolled back in, and the match went on.

Reader's Guide

The club won its first Ligue 1 championship in 2002, beginning a national record-setting streak of seven successive titles. Lyon has also won eight Trophées des Champions, five Coupes de France, and three Ligue 2 titles. On a European level, the team has participated in the UEFA Champions League seventeen times, reaching the semi-final of the competition during the 2009–10 season and the 2019–20 season, and have made it to the quarterfinals in three other occasions. They have also qualified for the Europa League numerous times, making it as far as the semi-final during the 2016–17 season.

Did You Know?

• The club's nickname 'Les Gones' translates to 'The Kids' in Lyon's regional dialect of Franco-Provençal.
• Lyon was a member of the G14 group of leading European football clubs and are founder members of its successor, the European Club Association.
• The club's first official match was on 27 August 1950, defeating CA Paris-Charenton 3–0 with the first goal scored within the first forty seconds.