After yet another defeat in the championship, Olympique Lyonnais decided to “temporarily” replace its coach Fabio Grosso with the director of the training center Pierre Sage. Arriving on September 16 in place of Laurent Blanc, the Italian only managed eight matches in Lyon, for only one victory, and left the club in last place in Ligue 1.
Olympique Lyonnais has “temporarily” replaced its coach Fabio Grosso with the director of the training center Pierre Sage and has initiated dismissal proceedings against the Italian technician, the French club announced on Thursday. Arriving on September 16 in place of Laurent Blanc, Grosso only managed eight matches at Lyon, for just one victory, and left the club in last place in Ligue 1.
Third Coach of the Year
This decision was taken “taking into account the results obtained and after an in-depth analysis of the team’s situation”, OL specified in its press release, adding that the “procedure which could lead to the termination of the employment contract” aims also Grosso’s four Italian deputies. A press briefing is planned for 4:30 p.m. at the club. Lyon lost at home on Sunday against Lille (2-0). The only match Grosso won was in Rennes (1-0), where his team played eleven against ten for almost the entire game. On October 29, the 2006 world champion was hit in the face by shards from the window of the OL bus that was stoned in Marseille, and the match could not be played.
Pierre Sage is already the third OL coach this season, and the sixth called to Lyon since the spring of 2019, something never seen before at the club. Aged 45, Grosso was a former left-back for OL for two seasons (2007-2009). Lyon, in serious difficulty, has plunged into a governance crisis, marked by dissensions between the former owner Jean-Michel Aulas and the new one, the American John Textor. The accounts for the 2022-23 financial year have returned to the red: as of June 30, the gross operating surplus is negative, at -1.8 million euros while the club had managed to turn the bar around after the Covid-19 pandemic (15.9 million euros) in 2021-2022.