Re: Ligue 1 - 11/12
You're giving them a bit too much of credit by saying they "gave Ben Arfa a chance", he's Parisienne, and was playing for a local team (Billancourt) and then went to Clairefontaine (the big training center for all French young players) by this stage he was pretty well known even on tv in France, and lots of clubs were trying to sign him. Ajax, Arsenal, Strasbourg, Lens and Chelsea were all trying to sign him - he was good enough to have got his chance, Lyon didn't really "nuture" his talent, it was already there, they just made the best bid for him. I don't think you can say Malouda was a risk at all, he had already played very well for Guingamp in Ligue 1, he had played very well under Lacombe and set up a lot of Drogba's goals for the club - he wasnt very expensive and was already a proven ligue 1 player.
I don't think Lyon were really that good for French football, as I've said in previous posts they only signed established Ligue 1 players, they didn't increase the quality of players in the league (there was no signing like Ronaldinho at PSG or Völler at OM), they didn't strengthen the standard of player in the league with their signings.
Also take a look at the France team of 1998-2000 (before Lyon dominated the league): Barthez (junior years at Toulouse and Marseille), Vieria (junior at Cannes), Blanc (junior at Montpellier), Djorkaeff (Grenoble), Deschamps (Nantes), Anelka (PSG/Arsenal), Zidane and Micoud (Cannes/Bordeaux), Pirez (Metz), Thuram, Henry, Petit and Trezeguet (Monaco). There are lots of clubs who grew these French players, but there wasnt a single player who was a junior or who grew at Lyons. If look at the squad at the last World Cup. There are some young Lyon players (either current or who were playing there in 2010) Llloris, Gourcuff and Toulalan, but these guys were initially grown at other clubs (Nice, Rennes, and Nantes), of the 2010 it was only Sidney Govou who was grown at Lyons. For a team that had won 7 out of 10 leagues before 2010 they didn't provide much to the national team. It's probably fair to say that it was better (for the national team) pre-1998 when you had lots of clubs (Monaco, Marseilles, Metz, Cannes etc) who were big enough to hold onto players for a few years and grow them. You could have Pires doing well at Metz, say Wiltord doign well at Rennes, and Micoud doing well at Cannes/Bordeaux without them worrying about competing with each other at the same squad (which is what happened a couple of years ago when you had Briand and Gomis against each other trying to get into the same team with Lisandro Lopez or even back in 2005 when it was was with Benzema, Wiltord, Govou, Bergougnoux and Frau).
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