That scene with the Ultras chewing up the players was so surreal. It's insane how this club used to be the gold standard of French Football and they were in the semi-finals of the UCL just 3 years ago

Watching the early part of this documentary so far, seeing how they sacked the manager who managed a treble in the 2007/08 (combined with only narrowly losing to Sir Alex's Man Utd in the UCL round of 16) is pretty nuts

I don't see their bad form to continue, but Saint Ettienne and Bordaux are a good reminder of what could happen to former Ligue 1 champions

The striker RWDM (a Belgian club who is as poor as it gets when it comes to Belgian first league clubs) 'bought' for 25 m, thus making it the biggest incoming transfer ever in Belgian football, who then immediately got sent 'on loan' to Lyon, a club which accidently has the same owner... That type of bypassing of financial fair play should really be dealt with.

Its 4am in Detroit, and I'm feeling kinda good cause I'm undefeated at Dream League Soccer in the Legendary Division. Then after smoking a cig and dropping the kids off a the pool, I refreshed my feed and what do you know, a HITC Stevens video. Never disappoints, and more surprisingly our team share the same names

Lyon was the powerhouse of ligue 1 from 2000- 12. Before the qataris takeover psg. I remember the lyon squad when they had Juninho , tiago benzema govou, coupet, Toulalan, erin abidal that was such a powerful team. Watching lyon in this state is so sad, not forgetting Lyon has one of the best youth academies in europe they produce so many football talents.

Dear Alfie From a Lyon fan living in Lyon Thank you You summed it all up 😭

10:30 That pic of Leonardo and Nasser is so menacing. It screams "We're here to destroy football"

For me as an 87 guy, I associate Lyon with Juninho, Gouvu, Essien, Ben Afra, Malouda, Carew, Abidal, Cris, and then later Benzema and Lloris (monster vs Liverpool in the home game).. this was Lyon to me. Young, exciting, so close to absolute greatness. Gen Z have no idea how good those noughties teams were. Yes they have several very good players like Cherki, Fekir, etc, but it was never quite the same after the PSG money came in and neutralized the league bar the odd season. I just want to add that Aulas was a bloody tough negotiator too. And that scuppered some deals where they'd have got serious money back. De Laurentiis and Levy like. A detriment at times for sure. Great vid as ever. Laurant Blanc's downfall also he needs speaking on. That Bordeaux title winning team led by Gourcuff, he looked like he'd go from world class player to coach. He is anything but the latter though. Edit - haha you covered Blanc in good depth, fair play. Football has passed him by since Bordeaux days.

When even clubs like Lens can have amazing seasons, but instead of strengthening for a CL season and a new title push their squad gets poached and they end up much weaker, it shows French football is a mess.

It's so surprising that both Manchester United and Olympique Lyon have fallen into the pieces when Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain took control with an infinite money and sportswashing. They were the dominant forces of European Football back in 2000s with lots of best players.

The reason why Lyon and other historic French clubs are falling is simple, and it's not PSG's fault. The problem is the French tax system, a club like Angers pays more in employer's contributions than ALL THE CLUBS in Serie A and La Liga put together. When a French club pays a player a salary of 1 million euros, in reality the club has to pay 2.5 million euros (1 million for the player and 1.5 million in tax). For the same salary, a Bundesliga club has to pay a total of 1.4 million. PSG is surely the only French club that can afford to pay big salaries and keep its players since Marseille in the 90s. Even Lyon in their heyday had to sell Benzema at the age of 19 when Real were interested in him.

What on Earth is going RIGHT for the Japanese men’s national team???

At least they have one of the best Women's Teams on the planet that haven't lost a Champions League knockout tie without some sort of tie breaker in a very long time.

Here in Brazil Textor has garnered immense respect from everyone by making traditional team like Botafogo top of the leguea while spending much less than its rivals. He built a very impressive scouting team here, and I assume he wants to do the same in Lyon, which will take time. His strategy is to spend money smart rather than burn it like Chelsea does. Also, Botafogo hit with lawsuits? That happens every time with every Brazilian team….

As of 23 October 2023 Lyon: 18th place (18 teams) in French Ligue 1 Ajax: 17th place (18 teams) in Eredivisie Basel: 12th place (12 teams) in Swiss Super League Schalke 04: 16th place (18 teams) in 2-Bundesliga (second tier league of Germany)

The minute I go on KZfaq another HITC documentary, we are spoiled

so grateful to see this one, I commented on an instagram post suggesting the idea, you liked it, I prayed, it happened! another masterpiece

i am a supporter of Botafogo, one of Textor's club. our club almost stopped existing, textor literally saved us. in just 1 year and a half, we have become the best team in the continent, we made the best first half in history of the brazilian league. textor has already managed to get rid of a LOT of the debt that botafogo had and is making a lot of money.

The Fifa 06 Lyon team was dope as all heck.

Besides arsenal , lyon is my favorite team . Its a shame to see ol in the postion their in .hopefully they can bounce back .

Please do one of these on Middlesbrough next. There's gotta be something going seriously wrong here

Since lyon also has a belgian "sister" or "feeder" club , can you touch also on that situation? Feels like my country is just becoming a feeder for the "bigger" ...just a few examples: Lyon - rwdm Brighton - union sg Man city - lommel sk Sheffield utd - Beerschot And still i don't think thats all

Lyon fan here: While i think the video is overrall pretty good, there are a few areas that you completely glossed over: 1 - While Juninho completely shat the bed by hiring Sylvinho, it must be said that he was only allowed to hire a coach that could come without a staff, so that the staff currently in place could stay. He also arrived as sporting director, but didn't have time to make targets himself, so all targets that window, our biggest window in decades, were from Florient Maurice: Joachim Andersen, Thiago Mendes, Reine-Adelaide for 25 mill each, all turning out to be complete busts. 2 - Our sporting structure has been a mess for years now. When Juninho arrived, he had to compete with previously mentionned Maurice, which led to internal struggles and dick contests until Maurice left for Rennes. Juni then had to compete with notoriously lazy and incompetent Bruno Cheyrou and with Vincent Ponsot, a man that was very good at negotiating and handling the business side of the club, but pretty bad at the rest. And while Juni struggled at first (see Sylvinho) he then managed to bring us Paqueta and Guimareas, two of our best transfers in a decade, which created resentment and jealousy with the rest of the direction, with Aulas trying to claim later on that he was the one who actually brought them.And when Juni left, Cheyrou was left as de facto sporting director, with terrifying results last season. And when Textor arrived at the helm, and tried to kick him out and add a modern data driven scouting department, Aulas categorically refused, protecting his friend against progress. That's when Textor fired Aulas. 3 - Way before Juni arrived, the club was one that completely lacked ambition and desire to improve itself. When Lyon built it's stadium, it was so expensive that we had to tone down our spending and sell like crazy, while relying heavily on academy graduates. This was our rebuild era, when the likes of Lacazette, Umtiti and Tolisso broke through the ranks. But as the years passed, the stadium payments were underway, the sporting project didn't change. We kept buying low, and selling everything and the kitchen sink anytime we had the chance, even though we didn't really need to anymore.

French football used to be great and so competitive before psg bought the league very sad

On the bright side....as an Arsenal fan, I was really proud of Alexandre Lacazette. 27 goals ain't bad at all yeah? Second only to Mbappe.

Lyon got the Chelsea new owner bounce. Down the table

The full video of the Lyon ultras speaking down on them is crazy because they deserve it one thousand percent and those "twitter nerds" saying other wise clearly haven't seen their record for this year, both in season and pre-season.

Quality video, was very informative listening to it whilst working. Cheers!

Great video, your videos are superb informative and also the visual draw you in as well.

FC Basel should have one of these videos done about them. They are bottom of the Swiss Super League on 5 points and only one win after 10 games. This team used to impress in Europe with good results against Premier League teams!.

You need to do "what on earth is going on at Ajax?" Twente 3-1 Ajax Excelsior 2-2 Ajax Fortuna Sittard 0-0 Ajax 12th

AYYYY, Alfie gang, we early, we here, we always waiting for the next ! Love and thanks for keeping me awake to unhealthy hours once again, as always a perfect excuse to keep being a Gargoyle 🖤

Love your videos, always bangers!

Awesome video as always👍 Not sure I would want this😂 But it would be a honor if you made a video about my favorite Norwegian side Rosenborg some time. They are by far the most successful club in Norway. But right now they are rubbish

Sad to see Lyon in this state, I've been watching Ligue 1 as a UK native for some years. I fell in love with ASSE (Saint Etienne) at the turn of the century and French football has been in decline since. I have no idea why there isn't more investment in the league as a whole given the natural talent prodcued by it

Olympique Lyon is one of my favourite respective footballing team in my favourite nation since my childhood years and ever but I am extremely so shocked to see them in the bottom of the table for one of the real bigger respective teams at the moment of time because of the failed management team in developing the team well which they must rectify as quick possible,good friends!!!The owner Jean Michael Aulas sir has the recklessness on how to deal with his team at times even during the successful years and he is to be blamed for their disastrous start to the season but I know this team can bounce back for sure and I am hoping for them to see them in top half of the standings and most importantly,the next year's January transfer window with the new ownership,good friends!!!LONG LIVE AND GO FORWARD OLYMPIQUE LYON!!!Disclaimer:Good friend Alfie must have edited the women's team content from the video,good friends!!!

I remember being younger and loving the old Lyon squad. Had to always be wary if you drew them in the Champions League. Back when they had Pernambucano, Luyindula, Govou, Diarra, Edmilson etc etc.

Great documentary as always Alfie, wondering if you'll eventually do a video on the current chaos in Spain women football at the moment, not just the current issues in the FA presidency but also that women in domestic league are going on strike as well, also a video on the rise of both Japan men and women's teams would be great!

It seems that most French fans would have a hard time deciding which was worst between Covid, American owners and the Media Pro Deal

Great video as always Alfie. Could we get a video on Southend United please. As I still don't fully understand how a club like that are in the mess they are. So sad to see. Hope they can get out of it the situation they are in.

Watched it when it came out and just saw they did sack Blanc! Always quick to it Alfie

Maybe an unpopular request but I would love to see a video explaining the situation of my local club Levski Sofia, who were on the verge of bankruptcy several times in the past decade, had two failed takeovers by foreign millionares in just the past 3 years alone, have an unfinished stadium where not even the main stand has a roof, but managed to play in this year's Conference League playoff just losing to Eintracht Frankfurt

also, molebeek bought ernest nuamah for 30M, which is the highest transfer fee in belgian football history, just to loan him to lyon right after since lyon got problems with the ffp, which is absolutely disgusting and a slimey way to cheat the sistem

And they have one of the best Women's Teams in world football.

It's a shame how Lyon, Valencia, Chelsea, Manchester United & Juventus have fallen from grace. Once upon a time they used to powerhouses in European football. Manchester United under Alex Ferguson dominated the PL with only Arsenal and Chelsea the main competitors along with to a lesser extent Liverpool and Newcastle and more recently Man City. Lyon always won Ligue One for most of the 2000s. Valencia were seen as the third force in Spanish football behind Real Madrid & Barcelona and went to two conservative CL finals in 2000 and 2001 with the former iconically against Real Madrid. But sadly Valencia due to dodgy owners are no longer that losing their spot to Athlectio Madrid with fellow Valencian side Villarreal overtaking them. Ever since Roman Abermovich left Chelsea, the club are a shadow of the club they once were and their golden generation is well and truly over at least for now. Juventus will obviously bounce back but at present they are also a shadow of the Italian giants they once were.

As an OL Reign supporter in the US, I am glad that you briefly talked about the club in this video. We have actually benefited greatly from Lyon taking ownership of the club because before that we were playing in an aging 10,000 seat stadium & struggling to draw good crowds. Now we are playing matches at Lumen Field (home of Sounders FC in MLS & the Seahawks of the NFL) & drawing some of the largest crowds in NWSL history while also signing top female players like Megan Rapinoe, Jordan Huitema & Rose Lavelle. The only thing the OL Group have messed up on so far during their ownership was hiring Fahid Benstiti as coach in 2021 who only lasted a handful of months & was accused of harassment by the players.

My main takeaway from this (it’s not a dig at the video as they’re always really good and this is no exception) is that one thing that seems consistent with Lyon is their ability to put out a classy kit every season. I like collecting football shirts and if I can’t get Denmark’s home shirt I’m going to have to settle for a Southampton shirt, but there’s a few from seasons gone by from Lyon that are now on my radar too. This is going to be an expensive year. Hopefully eBay won’t be too unkind price wise for some 😆

Could you do a video on why countries seem to have bursts of talent in a particular position? Like the strikers coming from Nigeria after osimhen, and poland for lewandowski or the midfielders that came out after modric in Croatia? I think it's an interesting phenomenon

It’s actually really sad to see them like this. The true shining star of French football, the most prestigious club in the country on its knees like that is hard to watch. Meanwhile PSG heathen their way to success

2000s Lyon was a beast.

Please do a vid on Ajax. 13th in the league with 100 mil spent. Match against feyenoord had to be abandoned because of the ultras throwing flares on the pitch and were then booed by the whole stadium every time they tried to chant. Then they tried to storm the owners entrance. I haven’t seen something like this in European football this year and not many people are covering it. Especially everything that happened with van der sar over the summer. It’s crazy to think this is the same club that this is the same club that got to a champions league semi final not long ago

Oh look, they just sacked Laurent Blanc this morning

Back in 2003 I played PES with friend and he picked Chelsea first which I liked at the time. Not knowing what to pick I choose Lyon, 21 years later and I still support them. Back in mid 2000s it was a beast of a team with Juninho, Cris, Malouda, Benzema, Abidal, Wiltord, Essien, Coupet...I'm sure that Lyon will rise again in future, it still have great youth system and produce great players.

Thank you for doing a video on my beloved Lyon - it is a mess there at the moment. Hopefully we can pull through. Allez Les Gones! Though, if you're going to say Aulas that many times, at least pronounce it correctly.

So when Lyon was dominating in the 2000s, was there a lot of complaint around neutrals that OL was making the French league boring, uncompetitive, had unfair advantages from their academy? Just a newish football fan wondering if OL faced the same carping as Man U of the same era, or Juventus ten years later, or Bayern the past ten years.

Still hoping for that Austrian Wunderteam video 😇✌. btw, I had to wait for you to show the shirt of the player you kept calling "Gerke" just to find out you meant "Gourcuff" 😂.

Lyon will be relegated. It's fault of Aulas - he was selling young academy players very cheaply to other french clubs and they were winning with them titles. Aulas without Bernard Lacombe was lost.

Probably my favorite French club so sad to see them decline so much. Hope they can bring it back and get back to trying to claw away the Ligue 1 title from psg

"the reigning Bundesliga champions Stuttgart..." 6:22 As a fan, this feels like it must have been a century ago even though it's not.

I miss benzema i remember watching him in the last 16 against my man utd the year we won it in 2008 they are a great club who had some phenomenal talent i hope they get bk to winning ways

As a Lyon fan I have to say that this current Lyon squad is really struggling right now. I really missed this club having players like Memphis Depay, Houssem Aouar, Karl Toko Ekambi, Nabil Fekir, Lucas Paqueta, Jason Denayer, Leo Dubois, and others. This club has officially lost the title of being one of the best clubs in France right now. If Lyon didn’t become a selling club to sell their best players to English, Spanish, German, or Italian teams, they maybe wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. This current squad’s performance on the pitch is very poor, just like its financial status. In my opinion, Lyon is in a huge crisis and needs a reboot.

This is the first time seeing HITC use a video clip

Bruh WTF goin on in Ligue 1 bruh. It feels like every former champion at this point besides PSG is going to fall. Just goes to show that you can't rely on name value just to automatically be relegated. It doesn't matter how much money you spend on your players as long as you use them correctly & not abuse them to the point of exhaustion and/or threat to leave.

As a Lyon fan I can honestly just laugh at how bad we are right now

Saint Etienne and now Lyon

Gopd video alfie could you do a videos on rangers downfall in recent years

i was really hoping to see a picture of Father Ted when you said 'Financial Irregularities'

When I'm writing this comment, Lyon is the only club in the top 5 leagues who haven't been in the lead this season so far.

great video but OL Reign didn't win the NWSL last season, they won the shield for having the best regular season performance but the Portland Thorns won the NWSL title when they won the play offs

Im a Marseille fan but its just Honestly sad seeing Lyon in this situation. Growing up watching Players like Benzema. Malouda. Abidal Juninho dude's Free Kicks were absolutely insane Sidney Govou Hugo Lloris Gregory Coupet Bafetimi Kim Kallstrom and so on. Making it to the Deep Waters of the champions League Knocking out Teams Like Real Madrid before eventually getting knocked out By Bayern alongside going against teams like Man U Liverpool That same Barca that won the Treble. Benfica eliminating Madrid A couple of times Not to mention they also were Knocked out in 2012 by the Cinderella story of that Season. APOEL 🇨🇾. Its just sad to see Lyon going from making it to the Semi finals of the champions League 3 years ago. To completely Falling to pieces

Life is simple, see HITC click HITC

14:17 what is this picture? 😱

First to like... First to comment!! A wondrous achievement!!

I was present at the Lyon v West Ham match in the Europa League a couple of seasons ago. West Ham won 3-0 and knocked them out. Their supporters were so incensed that, at the final whistle, they proceeded to smash up their own stadium and throw broken crowd barriers at the police.

Not to be that person but where did you get that the Reign won the nwsl championship from? Portland won it last year :( and the Spirit won in 2021? They did win the shield(still a fancy plate unfortunately) last year which I guess might be what you looked at? But that's the best regular season record not the league championship. Anyways other than that great video just not 100% on the womens side.

Do a video on What on earth is going on with the Bulgarian national football team.

Do a video on IFK Göteborg.

Alfie make a video on what on earth is going on at Everton FC. I think they are favorites to be relegated this season

Are you kidding me? Notoriously strict financial regulations in France? Most clubs operate at a loss and PSG is a bottomless pit of money.

I renew my petition for you to include international subtitles for your videos. I volunteer for Spanish, but just having them would be great for me and my football loving non-English speaking family.

Neen thinking about doing a save with lyon on fm for a while now

Really didn’t expect the Crystal Palace bit

Hopefully fabio grosso can lift up ol allez lyon !

Alfie having moving images in his videos is a W

in 10 years do you think there will be a version of this video about Brighton?

I remember them being the team in France during my generation

Blanc has been fired as I’m watching this for the first time 😭

I didn't realize until this point that there is a Moussa Dembélé and a Mousa Dembélé

Take a shot every single time MediaPro catastrophic deal collapse is mentioned every time a video about problems in French football is mentioned. I'd probably need to sign up for liver transplant afterwards.

Always blows me away that you can't get an intro done in under 4 minutes when most of KZfaq has done the intro and are half way to finishing 😂

French football can be interesting at times…it’s cool seeing teams like Lens competing in the CL but also seeing Nice, Brest, and Reims playing well meanwhile the downfall of Saint Etienne was remarkable considering they are one of the most successful all time teams in French football. Lyon joining that same fate potentially…I dread to think what could happen if they are relegated. French football doesn’t exactly have a great reputation when it comes to fans’ reaction and unrest.

Hope you can talk about the rise and fall of Sevilla

I took a soft spot to Leon after 2 great FM saves I did on them last year and I guess I couldn’t have picked a worse time

Allez l'OL 🔴🔵

Juninho was such class.

They just lost 1-2 at home against the bottom team in the league

Do Basel next

You’ve done it again Alfie. What’s the Lottery numbers this weekend?

OLYMPIQUE LYON IS CRAZY