Lyon (AFP) – Portuguese coach Paulo Fonseca confirmed to his players on Monday his premature departure from Lyon for Sporting Portugal, leaving OL in an unexpected third place in Ligue 1 after having been able to build a competitive team despite the financial torments of the Rhone club.

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 20:31

Arriving in January 2025 to succeed Pierre Sage, who had just been sacked, the 53-year-old technician, on the other hand, will have failed to take Lyon higher, stumbling on the last steps leading to the Champions League, and will have himself experienced turbulence.

Proof of the hasty nature of this departure, after a weekend of increasingly insistent rumors, his successor will only be appointed during the upcoming international break, which will begin next Monday.

Until then, according to a source close to the club, the interim will be provided by his compatriot Jorge Maciel, with two matches on the program for OL, in the Europa League against Real Sociedad on Thursday then at Brest on Sunday in L1. The Spaniard Carlos Vicens (43), recently sacked by Braga, another Portuguese club, is one of the favorites to succeed.

To justify, at the end of last week, his premature departure to surprised Lyon leaders, the Portuguese claimed to have made the "choice of the heart" regarding the Lisbon club of which he was a supporter as a child, said the same source.

Tears against Angers

The date Paulo Fonseca takes office at Sporting, two-time reigning Portuguese champion and involved in the Champions League this season, is also not known.

While Fonseca was under contract with OL until June 30, 2027, the Lyon club will receive compensation from the Portuguese club which could amount to five million euros.

If nothing has yet been made official by the two clubs, Sporting Portugal published a press release on Sunday to announce the opening of negotiations with a view to terminating the contract with its current coach, Rui Manuel Gomes Borges.

At the same time, rumors of Paulo Fonseca's departure took on even greater substance during OL's victory (2-0) against Angers, the technician unable to hold back his tears during the hug with his players following Lyon's second goal.

In the end, the Portuguese coach's assessment will remain ambivalent.

Upon his arrival, Fonseca distinguished himself by an altercation that went beyond the limits with the referee of the OL-Brest match Benoît Millot, on March 2, 2025, which cost him a long suspension of nine months, and tarnished his image.

With him, OL then qualified twice for the Europa League. But he also missed opportunities to participate in the prestigious - and lucrative - Champions League.

Economic difficulties

In the spring, Olympique Lyonnais was 3rd in the standings before losing their last two matches. Fourth, he had to go through the preliminary rounds of C1 and was eliminated in the play-off by Fenerbahçe despite a draw (1-1) in the first leg in Turkey (2-1 defeat on the return leg).

In the Europa League, despite a brilliant league phase, OL were unable to reach the round of 16, a year after a very painful elimination in the quarterfinals against Manchester United (Lyon led 4-2 in extra time at Old Trafford ten minutes from time before conceding three goals and losing 5-4).

But, for a year and a half, he maintained at arm's length the sporting level of OL, which was seriously struggling behind the scenes, in the grip of significant economic difficulties.

At the end of June 2025, the DNCG, the financial policeman of French football, pronounced the demotion of Lyon to Ligue 2, before it was finally drafted on appeal subject to applying a drastic plan of savings and sales of its best players.

In this context, Paulo Fonseca was able to promote the promotion of several young people from the Lyon team (Khalis Merah, Rémi Himbert) and make the most of little-known recruits like the Portuguese Afonso Moreira, contributing to their economic development.

Acquired for two million euros from... Sporting Portugal, Moreira (21 years old) was notably sold in June for 29.5 million excluding bonuses to Leverkusen.

© 2026 AFP

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