the acid confidences of Anthony Lopes on his delicate situation

While Olympique Lyonnais bounced back well this week by beating Olympiakos in the Europa League (2-0) then Toulouse in Ligue 1 (1-2) following the humiliation suffered a few days earlier at home against OM (2-3), Pierre Sage’s troops, who were filled with summer reinforcements with the arrivals of Moussa Niakhaté, Warmed Omari, Tanner Tessmann, Wilfried Zaha and Georges Mikautadze, also have to deal daily with certain players who have not not found a base during the last summer transfer window. Gones manager for more than 10 years, Anthony Lopes is nothing more than a discreet ghost within his favorite club: “No one ever took the time to chat with me, except the coach once or twice“. These are the words that Lopes summed up the ordeal he experienced last summer and the incomprehension in which he has been immersed for several months.

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Questioned by our colleagues from THE TEAMthe Portuguese goalkeeper listed his objectives set for the coming months: “In the short term, I will work to maintain my shape, I feel very good. Then, I need to find a new challenge as quickly as possible, because I miss the adrenaline of the field and the game. No one at the club can blame me for my involvement in training, I haven’t missed any, I’m always there with a smile, never sulky when I could be, but my personal situation must not encroach on the collective. I have respect for the group and for the staff. I never would have thought that my end at OL would be this, I had imagined something else“, he said. So why not leave earlier this summer? The native of Givors says more about the treatment he suffered from Lyon management.

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OL: Anthony Lopes’ icy response to his relationship with Lucas Perri

The doorman did not digest his treatment

Now fourth goalkeeper in the rotation behind Lucas Perri, Rémy Descamps and the young Justin Bengui Joao, the Portuguese international feels too much in Lyon, while he spends most of the matches in the stands or at home: “I simply think that I am not part of the hierarchy of goalkeepers at OL. I am in the place I was given, which is to say none. I accept the situation as best I can, knowing that I have no other choice available to me. I am in the training group but not in the hierarchy, since I cannot apply to play“, he specifies. If he confirms that he had some slightly heated discussions with Pierre Sage about his situation last summer, Lopes accuses the Lyon management of not having been completely honest and transparent with him: “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t think like that so I can’t understand. I didn’t get any explanations. Since no one criticizes me for anything sportingly and for my involvement throughout the weeks, how can I understand it?»

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However, having market opportunities, Anthony Lopes had some with FC Nantes and even Liverpool. But without ever having been officially invited to leave the club, the Portuguese goalkeeper preferred not to follow up on these summer sirens: “So already, I would like to say that no one warned me that my place was in question. I was clearly not told anything in January. I prefer to set the record straight at this point. Then, with the arrival of Rémy and the fact of being out of the group, I never imagined it would come to this. You should know that I have never been criticized for anything sportingly or in my involvement in training or in the locker room… But the reality is that today I watch the matches from the sofa», he details, not without bitterness. After 489 matches played, Anthony Lopes is nothing more than an extra within the Lyon group who are impatiently waiting for the winter market to pack up.