Remi Garde: Reclaiming The World - THIS STORY WILL NOT GO ANY FURTHER

Best of luck with France, regens must be incredible

BENZIA looks great.

Thanks guys! Benzia looks absolutely fantastic and I seem to be luckier in this save than others with him!

Update coming soon, maybe 1 tonight otherwise by the weekend!

Starting my 6th season in charge of Olympique Lyonnais I knew I had gathered an incredible set of players with great abililty at such a young age. It was my confidence in them and in the fact that there were so many youngsters bursting to join the first team that I did not deem any big name, big money transfers necessary.

There were however few players I knew would be leaving. Tom Ince, who joined us for €9.75 million 3 seasons ago had played well but not great. I always felt his development was stunted and he never pushed on to become a great winger. Compare him to Agustin Allione and you have one player who is 21 and considered to be one of the best 5 wingers in the world while Ince is barely making a mark in the games he plays. I called him in to my office and he knew where this was headed. He was anticipating this because days before I had decided to bring Demba Fomba in to the first team squad from the u19 squad and Ince realised it was time for him to go. I transfer listed him for €18 million and P$G came and offered a decent €15 million. I accepted and Ince joined them.



Another winger has also left the club. Jimmy Briand has found his chances very limited after the arrivals of Younes Belhanda and Agustin Allione. He joined Lyon in 2010 and was very much my first choice winger in the first 2 seasons I took over but as Allione developed, Briand found himself as the back up and then Belhanda joined and that all but sealed Briand’s time with us here. He came to speak to me and asked to be transfer listed. He had never caused me a problem, always worked hard and in some situations saved our ass so I couldn’t refuse his simple request. Monaco met the asking price of €5 million and he left to join his new teammates.



Tottenham have got in to a habit of poaching some of my youngsters and it is really pissing me off as I have left the youth transfers in the hands of my Head of Youth Development and yet he seems to be letting them join for measly €1 million compensation. Two players have signed for Spurs in Jean Louis Coste and Younes Auvray. I’m not too disappointed that it is just these 2 as I had not expected great things from them.



After seeing the development of Tony Watt, Yassine Benzia and Alexandre Lacazette and with a whole host of young strikers on the verge of being good enough for the first team I had sent Carlos Fierro on loan again last season to Southampton and he did well. He scored 20 goals in 32 games and had got some much needed playing time but I knew he wasn’t coming back here to settle in the first team. I transfer listed him as soon as he got back and Stoke piped up with a €16.5 million bid. No other team offered over €15 and soon it was clear he was on his way to play for the Potters.



Clement Grenier and Macky Bagnack have both been transfer listed but nobody wants to take them on a permanent deal and both have left on loan, along with several youngsters who will hopefully get some solid game time.

Joining the club are 2 players who’s transfers had been arranged long before the start of the new transfer window. Sandro Ferraro joins from Boca on a €3.2 million deal and has joined Levante on loan where he will hopefully get games in a tough league to develop quickly.



The 2nd player joining is 18 year old Djibril Toure, who comes from Manchester United in a bumper €16 million deal. He is touted to be a future leader and French superstar but it is clear to see he has the ability now to already make an impact. With Hughes, Belhanda and now Toure capable of playing in the AMC role it will be a battle to see who takes it but there is no doubt in my mind that Toure will get games this season and develop, surrounded by players who were once in his position of being the youngster with so much expectation.



That concludes the summers transfer business and leaves us with a healthy €50 million plus transfer budget and a wage budget with over €100,000 capacity.

Awsome story mate !!!! keep it up I cant wait to see what side is next for you to conquer and how the frech post goes.

Those youth signings look incredible, hopefully they can develop into stars without Spurs pinching them

NOOOOOO! FIERRO LEFT! At least youve got some good replacements

Lacey: Thanks mate! Glad to see you reading always nice to get a new follower!

Rabs: There is no chance spurs are getting their hands on those 2! They are the future of the club haha

Louis: He did indeed and I think I got a good price for him too! Sandro Ferraro will be quality if he can get quicker

Some good signings there mate! Great story, keep it up!

Pre-season has never been of importance to me and I always let my assistant manager handle it. The matches, the press conferences are all a bit repetitive and long winded in my opinion and so I find my time better spent on scouting potential signings or dealing with club paperwork.

This year I decided to add in an extra fixture to the pre season list to really test the boys and see how they could handle playing a team like Barcelona in the early stages of the preparations for the Champions League defence.

The boys handled every game comfortably but what was more important, and always is in pre season time is getting the players back to match fitness and sharpness. Prince Boateng, Yassine Benzia and Kwadwo Asamoah stood out for me as the players to watch out for this season and the ones I will be expecting to perform to the highest standard possible this season.

With so many options in many different positions, I am looking for the next few games to be an indicator as to who deserves to stay in the 1st team squad. With Demba Fomba and Djibril Toure in the squad, competition is high but it might be too much of a big ask for these 2 youngsters. I have every confidence that this season will be one of development for them regardless of the playing time they receive.

The Trophee des Champions has really turned in to another pre season game for us and one that I always expect us to win considering the relative strength of our squad compared to the teams we play. Montpellier proved to be nothing more than a simple win as our boys started to hit their stride. I have my first match as France manager coming up in 10 days and then the first league game of the season away to Nice. I am looking for both new campaigns to get off to winning starts and with the players at my disposal I expect nothing less.

Good game and results pre-seson .

Good luck .

Great pre season even if it is to no importance

good results.

Some good results and that 18 y/o regen looks class. Still love this story a lot.

These are the results of Didier Deschamps last matches in charge of the national team. They failed to qualify from the group and ended with a defeat to England. A draw against Turkey and a lame win against Bulgaria showed Deschamps managerial skills with the national team were lacking and it was time for a change. That led to my appointment and all of a sudden it was time for the first match. A friendly had been organised against Columbia, a team not to be taken lightly. I already knew there were players who would not play for me unless they were immense and I was ready to bring in unknown players if it measns we win games.




I had set the formation at 4-4-2 with some specific instructions as I could see the team making the best use of this with the players we have.


We played some fantastic attacking football and I was extremely impressed with Pogba’s domination in the middle of the park. One position we will need to strengthen nationally is out on the wings. Jeremy Menez is not my first choice going forward and Griezmann is 2nd choice so I will need to spread the net wider within the national pool of players. Hugo Lloris captained the side as new captain Yann M'Villa was out with a slight knock but going forward M'Villa will be captain with Lloris as vice captain.