A year ago, Olympique Lyonnais ended a perilous season, heckled like a drunken boat with 10 defeats in 28 games. Just before confinement, the Rhone club hit a last reef after a setback in Lille. The fight of its president, Jean-Michel Aulas, opposed to the premature end of the championship, aroused mockery and hostility. The sinking was complete when the presidents of Ligue 1 stopped a ranking mode excluding OL, finally 7e of the championship, qualifying for the European Cup for the first time in more than two decades.
A year later, the castaways returned to dry land. Transfigured, Lyon’s footballers even contend for the title with their Lille and Parisian counterparts. Sunday March 21, Lyon (3e), tackles a first decisive step: the reception of PSG (2e). The two rival clubs have the same number of points – 60 – three lengths behind the Lille leader they will face in April.
How to explain this passage, in a few months, from a dying team to a contender for the title of champion of France? Arrived in Lyon in January 2020, in the midst of a storm, striker Karl Toko Ekambi is one of the witnesses of this mutation. With 12 goals and 5 assists, the Cameroonian international is no stranger to the good Lyon season, like captain Memphis Depay (14 goals) – expressly put back on his feet after his cruciate ligament rupture – and the summer recruit Tino Kadewere (10 goals). “ I consider myself a new player, assures Karl Toko Ekambi to World. This is my first real season here. We must allow time for things to fall into place. I know that we are demanding with OL because it is a great club… ”
“The best midfielder in Ligue 1”
In the heart of summer, an event may have helped to avoid the worst: the disorderly evacuation to a man for himself. Less publicized than the course of the Parisian finalists, that of the Lyonnais tightened the team bonds during the “Final 8” of the Champions League: by a surprise victory against Manchester City (2-1) and by twenty excellent first minutes in semi-final against the future Munich European champions.
“Yes, I think it was an adventure, a sort of internship with high level matches. Beyond individualities, it showed us our potential as a team. We tried to do the same in Ligue 1 ”, confirms Toko Ekambi.
As in the Lisbon episode, the Lyon midfielder rules in Ligue 1 thanks to the wealth of its workforce, reinforced in the last days of the transfer market by the arrival of the Brazilian Lucas Paqueta and the sporting resurrection of his compatriot Thiago Mendes . “Paqueta has been beneficial for the club and the other players. It made it possible to raise the level of requirement of all. We have the best midfielder in Ligue 1. Whatever players are on the line, it’s easy to play with them ”, boasts the 28-year-old forward.
Yet despite an inaugural victory against Dijon on August 28, the Lyonnais took their time to settle the sights, unable to win the next five matches until a success snatched away in Strasbourg… on October 18th. That day, Toko Ekambi – a double – and his friend Kadewere scored the three victorious goals (3-2).
Guided by the experienced Depay, in Lyon since 2017, the attacking trio marches on the opposing defenses. Lyon no longer loses and wins nine times in eleven games until the truce. “Memphis is captain in Lyon and often in the selection of the Netherlands. He is at the heart of the club, the game and the offense. He scores a lot but he is also the best passer in the championship. He unites and pulls us up, admires his attacking partner. We have to help him because we ask a lot of him. We have to believe in our chances. “
“I started from quite low”
If since the resumption in January the ratio is less impressive – seven successes in twelve outings – it still allows OL to aim for a first national consecration since 2008. “When you score in three games in a row, everything is great. We do not score in a match and we would have to change everything. The statistics prove it. What we do is very good, strikes the attacker, impervious to criticism. I started from quite low [National, Ligue 2 puis Ligue 1]. At each level crossed, I always heard that I had nothing to do in such club. In the end, it goes well every time … “
Coach Rudi Garcia (French champion with Lille in 2011) likes to rely on the same men. Karl Toko Ekambi is one of them: “Compared to last year, he still has the same method. It was the players who assimilated and accepted it. The method of a coach, it must be accepted. And trusting “executive” players is part of his. “
In the first leg, on December 13, the Lyonnais won at the Parc des Princes for the first time since 2007. Karl Toko Ekambi recovered a bad recovery from PSG to throw Tino Kadewere in a touch of the ball, for the only goal of the encounter. Sunday, this Parisian by birth has a new opportunity to participate in what could be the eighth defeat of PSG this season. Too much for a club given as untouchable in France and which has cornered seven of the last eight championships.
Toko Ekambi could then experience a feeling of déjà vu: “When I started watching football as a teenager, it was always Lyon the champion, the best team in France. “ A time during which OL advanced to record averages in the league, quickly letting go of the competition thanks in particular to Juninho’s magic right foot. Now sporting director of the club, the Brazilian could well be the privileged witness of a happiness as absolute as it was unexpected, just one year after one of the worst seasons in its recent history.
