PROFILE | Corentin Tolisso driving revival at boyhood club | OneFootball

“I don’t know what to say. I have been a Lyon fan since I was a little boy. I have never seen Lyon in this state” were the words of Corentin Tolisso, who was on the verge of tears, after his boyhood club had suffered a defeat against Reims left them at the foot of Ligue 1 in October 2023.

The midfielder is a graduate of the esteemed Lyon academy and witnessed the club he supported as a boy winning seven successive Ligue 1 titles. At the beginning of the year, with OL mired in a relegation battle, those glory days could not have been further away.

Tolisso is a part of the leadership group at Les Gones. Although Lacazette plays the role of captain, the 30-year-old is the club’s vice-captain. Visibly hurt and emotionally drained by the Rhône club’s poor start to the 2023/24 season, the France international placed ownership on himself and the rest of the Lyon squad to turn their season around and that is exactly what they did following the arrival of Pierre Sage.

OL won 12 of their last 15 games in the French top flight to go from relegation candidates to qualifying for the Europa League. The club also reached the final of the Coupe de France but were defeated by PSG. Injuries prevented the World Cup winner from being available throughout the season, but towards the latter end, the midfielder was a driving force behind the club’s drastic turnaround.

Tolisso back on Didier Deschamps’ radar?

Winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich and the World Cup with France are very different pressures from what he experienced with Lyon last year. Yet, with the emotional attachment to his hometown club, the desperation was apparent when he gave that interview back in October to turn things around and the midfielder was a part of one of the most dramatic comebacks in football history.

Although Lyon have started this season in a much less dramatic fashion, Tolisso has still been at the centre of their success. The OL academy graduate has gained plaudits for his influence in attacking areas and has shown glimpses of the form that saw him earn a big-money move to Bayern Munich. For a player who has notoriously struggled with injuries and fitness, he has begun to be consistently available and if that trend can continue, he will likely prove to be influential for Les Gones, and perhaps even for France, in 2025 and beyond.

GFFN | Liam Wraith