Olympique Lyonnais

Here in Lyon there is a football club, "soccer team," that plays in the French League 1. Prior to 2002 they had never won the title in the French league but have won the title the past 6 years and are well on their way to their seventh straight invitation to the Champions Cup. The Champions Cup is basically a tournament that is made up of the winners of the various national leagues that many countries have and is often considered the most prestigious trophy in all of football. This year OL, which is the shorter name for the team here, is doing quite well and are in first place in French League 1. If I was back in the US and had the chance to go see an MLS game, I might go if I had the opportunity. However, I went to the OL game this past Wednesday when they played a team from northwest France named FC Lorient and it was incredible.

Football in Europe puts any soccer to absolute shame back stateside. First of all, the stadium, which is a soccer only stadium, holds about 43,000 people and it usually sells out at every game. This creates a much different atmosphere than any soccer game could. Secondly, when you think of passionate fans in America you usually picture somebody with face paint who goes to every game. A fan of the OL football club is somebody that belongs to a brotherhood. They live and die by their football club and are more passionate than any fan I've ever seen. They have flags, and songs, and jerseys, and seasons tickets because that is what their life is about.

Stade de Gerland is where the team plays all of their home games which is located on the outskirts of the city. Just walking up to the stadium you know that its something that is going to be unlike any other professional sports game in America. The entire stadium is decorated for the team and there are vendors and people drinking their beers for blocks outside of the stadium before the game. I left my apartment an hour before the game was supposed to start and the metro was packed with fans even then. These fans are just another breed.

The game itself was also very different from an American sports game. There was no large fanfare about the starting lineup or pretty much anything other than the actual game itself. There was no music on the PA system during halftime, no sponsor announcements (at least not that I could hear or understand), no bombardement with various marketing campaigns. No blaring music during starting lineups, no national anthem, nothing that would take away from the actual playing of the game. It was purely a gathering to watch le match de football. So 90 minutes of soccer later, Lyon came out on top winning 2-0 in a game where it could have been 5-0 if not for a couple hits off the post. All in all it was a good game to watch if you were an OL fan.

Now for some odd differences. The seats on the ends of the field which is where my seat was, are pretty much general admission. You have a section, row, and seat number but everybody pretty much just sits and stands wherever they want. So for most of the game, everybody on the end was standing and chanting, if you knew the chants, and cheering. However, along the length of the field was a very different group. On either side of the field were the "sophisticated people." Everybody had their own seat and sat in it the entire game until the ball got real close to the goal and then they would all stand up together. As soon as the ball was kicked, they would all sit back down together. It was a clear division between economic classes. More observations, when the fans don't agree with a call, they not only boo, but most of them whistle quite loudly. Also when the ball is lost and most American fans would raise both arms to the sky in disbelief, the OL fans raise only one hand to the sky. Lastly, an observation about the fanatics and their chants. Many of the chants were sung to American tunes such as Yankee Doodle which seemed very odd. Kind of a high schoolish vibe when you can't come up with your own tune so you insert your name into another song.

However at the end of the day I had decided that it was an awesome experience and I will attend most of the home games since the tickets are all under 20€. EXCEPT for one game. Manchester United, a premier team from England, comes into town for the first leg of the Champions Cup. The city here will basically shut down during the game and since everybody cannot go, they will be streaming the live video into the city square for all of us lower class folk. The cheapest ticket to the football game......? Only 300€. Mom, dad maybe a little help with that one?