Three days after the DNCG announcements, OL players returned to training this Monday. With inevitably questions given the situation weighing on the club.
Now it's time for the game, but the context is very different from Friday, when they left. The Olympique Lyonnais players will return to the training center on Monday morning. In the viewfinder, the trip to Reims on Saturday at 9 p.m. In the meantime, the sky still darkened strangely above Décines during the weekend, at the same time as the DNCG announcements came.
Friday evening, the financial policeman of the League chose, after a long interview with John Weaver and Laurent Prud'hommeas well as an audit of the club's accounts, to sanction OL. Control of the payroll, ban on recruitment, demotion as a precautionary measure… He received the full price. If, throughout the weekend, it was necessarily about the leaders and mainly the American businessman, the footballers are also in the same boat.
After raising the bar last season, saving the team from a descent that seemed inevitable and finally winning an unexpected ticket to the Europa League, Pierre's group Sage is off to a much better start in 2024-2025. Fifth in a third of the championship, he is only two points from the podium and one length from fourth place, synonymous with the Champions League.
Keep the group involved and united
But can these punishments inflicted by the National Management Control Department impact the generally positive dynamic at the start of the financial year? Beyond the accounting aspect, which notably includes the departure of elements of the workforce during the winter transfer window, the subject here is above all mental. We therefore interviewed two professionals about this.
From a collective point of view, their answer is unanimously yes. Now this can be translated into two forms. The more positive one, with the strengthening of ties and an esprit de corps. “Il is not the most frequent, but it invites players, staff, managers, etc. to become one, to regroup, and somewhere, to become strongers, Fred explains to us Chevallyco-founder of Jobosport and specialist in support and mental preparation. This implies that there are leaders who drive the machine, unite and lead the group whatever happens..”
This would be the best scenario for OL, for whom participation in the C1 would change many things. However, the period could instead be synonymous with doubt. “I'm not going to surprise anyone, yes, obviously, this context on the future of the club and therefore on the immediate future of the athletes has an impact on them, on their loved ones and on the atmosphere in the locker room. A contract in Ligue 2 no longer has anything to do with a contract in Ligue 1. To illustrate the impact of doubt on the performance of a team, it is enough to observe the drop in the level of play of the teams which play the maintenance even though they were not intended for that: OL precisely during the first part of last season“, illustrates Patrick Grosperrina mental trainer from Lyon used to working alongside high-level athletes.
Daniel Congré expected in this situation
An uncertainty which can materialize in several points: “A breakdown of trust in the institution, the leaders, the staff, the project, but also a drop in motivation, a lack of commitment, dispersion, a form of conservatism and nervousness“, states Fred Chevally. On the ground, this can translate into “a lack of initiative, a drop in performance (individual and collective), discouragement, even abandonment“, he continues.
All of this will obviously be observed over time. From this perspective, the role of management, and more precisely that of Daniel Congerthe sports coordinator, will be decisive in ensuring that no one is lost along the way. The newest member of the organization chart, who has training in mental preparation, should be approached. Because if the collective questions are numerous, those individual ones are just as numerous.
How will the players react individually?
In a group where almost everyone is likely to be sold in January, how will each of the elements making up the locker room react? “It depends on the cases and the players, but it is clearly not an easy situation to live with.. Uncertainty about the future which will certainly generate questions, stress, concerns“, warns Fred Chevally. According to him, it is also possible that some “withdraw into themselves, with an exacerbated individualism“, or even that “internal tensions between those still invested in the project, in the club, and those who “gave up”“.
His colleague adds another possibility. “Given the uncertainties that now weigh on the future of the club, leaving is no longer seen in the same way. When the boat rocks and a lifebuoy, a luxury one at that, presents itself, we take“, image Patrick Grosperrin. A more individualistic reasoning therefore, far removed from the values necessary for a collective to get by.
It is also possible that the opposite happens, and that a “outpouring of solidarity“is formed.”We close ranks and we become stronger. Even departing players play their role because of their personal values (attachment to the club, to the collective, to always giving the best of oneself, etc.)“, explains Fred Chevally. This mental dimension will be one of the sporting keys for OL to get through this, and even if it will not solve everything, it will at least do them good on the field, if they succeed.
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