The new era under John Textor has officially taken shape for a week on the side of Olympique Lyonnais. Via A press release, the club announced on June 19 “a major step in the restructuring of its sports organization”, with the joint arrivals of Martin Buchheit and Matthieu Louis-Jean. Appointed performance director after having held this position during his long tenure at PSG (from 2014 to 2020), where he notably rubbed shoulders with Laurent Blanc, the first named will be responsible for “supervising and coordinating physical preparation, sports science, nutrition and development research”. But when aiming (finally) for a rebound after two consecutive seasons without European qualification, it is above all the second who will be observed this summer with his key role as director of recruitment.
Installed in place of Bruno Cheyrou, Matthieu Louis-Jean (47) should therefore have strong decision-making power from July 1, especially since John Textor did not wish to appoint a sports director above him. . He favors the option of a “general sports director soon appointed at the head of Eagle Football”, the American structure owning OL but also Botafogo (Brazilian D1), Molenbeek (promoted to Belgian D1) and a part of Crystal Palace (Premier League). The former defender of Le Havre and Nottingham Forest (300 professional matches from 1994 to 2005) still remains officially under contract for four days with Olympique de Marseille, where he had signed up for two years in 2021, as responsible of recruitment.
“He is a football addict”
But who is hiding exactly behind the new builder of the Lyon professional group, who “will be in charge of the club’s entire recruitment policy”, as assured by the OL press release? “He is above all an extremely discreet character, who works in the shadows, which in my opinion is the greatest quality when one is a recruiter, underlines the former director of the OM training center Nasser Larguet, who collaborated with him during the 2021-2022 season. With his experience as a player and then as a recruiter in England, he has what it takes to be a decision-maker. »
After the Liverpool Academy then Nottingham Forest, Brighton, West Bromwich and Bristol City, Matthieu Louis-Jean was above all the scouting referent for monitoring the French market (L1 and L2) for Manchester United, from 2016 to 2021, apart from a short transition to the head of the recruitment unit of OGC Nice in 2019, until the takeover of the club by Ineos. “What surprised me during our first exchanges was that he had a vast knowledge of the international market, even if he worked exclusively on the French market, explains Thomas Maurin, who worked with him during his period. at Manchester United, as an ex-scout for the Red Devils academy. This is where we see that he is a football addict. We all have that side of the job, but Matthieu is particularly capable of watching matches all the time. »
A “vast and sharp field of action” at OM
Thomas Maurin then found Matthieu Louis-Jean at OM, as a post-training scout. Before the arrival in 2022 of Javier Ribalta as director of football and a restructuring of recruitment to training, he saw him struggling in Marseille with a funny double hat. “Matthieu is a bit of a chameleon because he had all the responsibility for the transfer window among the pros as well as among the young people, he confides. Its field of action was both vast and pointed. I saw him chain meetings to discuss possible recruits for the professional group and observations of U12 players. »
This is why OL is delighted in its press release to “integrate a global and modern approach that can meet the new challenges of football”. And this with “a cell completely redesigned in depth which will strengthen its use of data, video, as well as artificial intelligence”. What importance does the person concerned give to data, stated as a major issue in each interview with John Textor? “He will never be a statistics engineer, but he wants to understand all the new tools so that he can then use them in his recruitment”, specifies a former member of the OM staff. Its main assets remain elsewhere, according to Thomas Maurin, now responsible for post-training recruitment in Clermont.
His great strength, in addition to his English network and his eye for young prospective players led to take on value, such as Isaak Touré, is the importance he attaches to the relational dimension with the players, their entourage, agents and the clubs. In some cases as for George Ilenikhena [attaquant amiénois de 16 ans], this did not lead to a final signing at OM for various reasons. But he is very good at providing valuable follow-up over time for players identified very early on, and of whom he is convinced of the potential. »
The arrival of Khephren Thuram in Nice among his great successes
This is in particular how Marseille obtained the loan of William Saliba in 2021, while Arsenal pushed their promising defender to favor a base in the Premier League. “Matthieu Louis-Jean had a privileged relationship with William Saliba and his entourage, well before his professional debut at AS Saint-Etienne, confirms a source familiar with the matter. He had already tried to convince United to sign him. The Gunner is one of the main successes of Matthieu Louis-Jean, who was also behind the arrival of another young French international, Khephren Thuram, in 2019 at OGC Nice. Nasser Larguet profiles the players who usually catch the eye of the new Lyon recruitment boss: “He is very attached to technical, explosive players with a strong personality. We talked a lot about these three main criteria together”.
Aurant of profiles that have been sorely lacking in the Lyon workforce for long seasons. According to a former member of the OM staff, Matthieu Louis-Jean is in any case unanimous everywhere he goes. “There isn’t a guy who can drool over him, it’s super rare in football, he believes. He is a real recruiter, who was able to make a very creative 2021 summer transfer window in Marseille, and whose life it is to go every weekend to Turkey, England or the depths of Serbia to observe players. »
“He will be able to transpose his substantive work with OM to OL”
It remains to be seen how the interested party will digest his new level of responsibility this summer by changing Olympics. “When you are part of a structure with a president [Pablo Longoria] and a director of football [Javier Ribalta] who have recruiter profiles, that naturally reduces your room for manoeuvre, notes Thomas Maurin. There, I think that OL want it to be very heavily involved in this transfer window. He will be able to transpose his substantive work and his observation of the markets to Lyon, which has roughly the same financial capacities as OM. “And this from this summer transfer window therefore, which he will carry out in consultation with Laurent Blanc, reinforced on the sidelines, John Textor, and Vincent Ponsot, still general manager of football keen to” ensure the feasibility of operations “. This will be the first transfer window since the end of the Aulas era.
Upon his official arrival at the club on Saturday, Matthieu Louis-Jean will perhaps discover that the international hopeful Castello Lukeba (20), strongly courted by RB Leipzig, is no longer a Lyon player. Because like so many others before him, the new director of recruitment will have to bow to the economic realities which are now pushing OL to part with their strongest market values at almost every transfer window. A state of affairs, in connection with the passage in front of the DNCG on Wednesday, hardly compatible with the annual objective of a podium, which has never been achieved in the past four seasons.