Lyon remain the Team to Beat

In a new column on the women’s game, Glenn Moore looks ahead to the forthcoming season across Europe

Lyon’s victory in the UEFA Women’s Champions League Final in May marked the end of an era at the French club, but there is unlikely to be any easing of their European power and domestic dominance. French champions 10 seasons in a row, OL bade farewell to a trio of players after their penalty shoot-out victory over Wolfsburg before swiftly announcing a series of measures that should make Gerard Precheur’s side even stronger.

Of those leaving, Louisa Necib – who is often billed as the female Zinedine Zidane, due to a similar playing style and also being Marseille-born of Algerian heritage – has announced that, at 29, she would retire after the Olympics to start a family. Having married Servette’s French-Algerian defender Liassine Cadamuro-Bentaiba in June she says that combining motherhood with playing would be “complicated”. Meanwhile, 32-year-old Swedish striker Lotta Schelin, who scored 224 goals in 214 games for Lyon, has returned home to join Damallsvenskan leaders Rosengard and Amandine Henry, at 26 the only one of the three whose best years lie ahead, has signed for Portland Thorns in the USA.

These three have been at the heart of Lyon’s success, but the club is looking forwards, not backwards. President Jean- Michel Aulas even used Twitter to float the audacious idea of luring Alex Morgan from the US, but that seems unlikely given she has just moved to Orlando Pride in order to be near her husband, Servando Carrasco, who plays MLS for Orlando City.

Nevertheless, several key players, notably strikers Eugenie  Le Sommer and Ada Hegerberg, have signed new contracts, and a raft of new recruits have been acquired.