Christian Lanier bows out on a match of real beauty after 40 years with Lyon | OneFootball

According to Le Progres, long-time Lyon reporter Christian Lanier is taking a well-earned retirement after 40 years, signing off at Saturday’s OL against Rennes, a superb contest from start to finish.

He began on 13 August 1986, covering a D2 match, it was not yet called Ligue 2, with Robert Nouzaret as coach and the late Slobodan Topalovic in goal. His first assignment brought a 2-2 draw.

From Gerland to Groupama Stadium, he took the pulse at pitchside, then filed from the press box, often outdoors to better breathe the game.

Passion powered the big nights and the journeys. The Champions League thrilled him, yet a trip to Zilina in Slovakia for an Intertoto tie in summer 1997 delighted him just as much.

The day before his farewell, after Paulo Fonseca’s press conference, the Lyon head coach and sporting director Matthieu Louis-Jean presented him, in front of the journalists present, with a shirt bearing the number 40 to mark 40 years. He will no longer cover matches for Le Progres, but will, no doubt, keep following them with the same joy.

Source: Le Progres

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