Frederico Chaves Guedes 'Fred' leads Olympique Lyonnais into the UEFA Champions League tournament. Bodog.com has Olympique Lyonnais at 7 to 1 (Bet $1.00 to win $7.00) to win the UEFA Champions League. Olympique Lyonnais is a French football club based in Lyon. They play in Ligue 1 and are the reigning champions of France, for the fifth time running, and currently favored to deliver a sixth Le Championnat title.
Lyon has won six Trophées des Champions, three Ligue 2 Championship and a Coupe de France title as well as seven participations in the UEFA Champions League, despite not taking part in a final. Olympique Lyonnais plays their home matches at the Stade de Gerland, Lyon. Lyon is also a member of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs. Lyon was formed as Lyon Olympique Universitaire in 1899, according to many supporters and sport historians but was nationally established as a club on August 3, 1950.
Olympique Lyonnais has dominated the top French level, Ligue 1, in the early years of the 21st century. After their second place finish in 2001, Lyon has won five consecutive Ligue 1 titles (2002-2006), becoming the first club in French history to do so. Lyon's European ambitions have meanwhile never stretched beyond the quarter finals, however.
The club has attracted many top level coaches, each successful in different competitions and areas of the field. Jacques Santini was appointed in 2000 after leaving his position at FC Sochaux. Santini quickly restored the team and in 2001, Lyon had won Coupe de la Ligue (League Cup), which surprisingly was the club's first major silverware since the 1973 Coupe de France win. He also steered the side to a top two finish and Lyon, therefore qualified for the UEFA Champions League in second place. Santini was still not popular with the fans for his defensive approach to the game.
Bodog.com has Olympique Lyonnais at 7 to 1 to win the UEFA Champions League.
In 2002, Santini went one better and guided Lyon to their first ever Ligue 1 title, after a win against RC Lens. It still didn't convince the majority of the OL supporters that he was the right man, after suffering an early knockout in the Champions League, and a fortnight after the win, Santini announced his resignation with Lyon.
The man responsible for delivering three consecutive league titles with Lyon was former Rennes manager Paul Le Guen. Le Guen was highly noted for grooming players such as El Hadji Diouf at his time at Rennes, but he was feared as another failure, according to much of the press.
He undoubtedly proved them wrong, and Lyon improved in Ligue 1 and in the Champions League. Despite finishing third in the Champions League group stages, Lyon was only knocked out due to the goal against rule, which meant that OL was placed in the UEFA Cup.
Le Guen's second season saw Lyon win their third title and second during his reign. OL was also top of their group in the Champions League, despite the threat of previous winners, Bayern Munich. The team beat Real Sociedad in the round of 16, but their luck ran out against FC Porto, who ultimately won the competition.
For this years UEFA Champions League, Brazilian novelty player Fred is on hand to help. Frederico Chaves Guedes 'Fred' is an instinctive striker, equally likely to be in the right place at the right time to tap in a goal as he is to produce the spectacular.
Olympique Lyonnais fans will long remember Fred's reaction to scoring his second UEFA Champions League goal, making it 4-0 against PSV Eindhoven in March 2006. The striker pulled a baby's dummy from his shorts and popped it in his mouth in celebration of the birth of his daughter earlier that day.
Lyon had one eye on the future when they paid EC Cruzeiro €15m for Fred in August 2005, but they were soon seeing a return on that investment. The youngster plundered 14 league goals in his first season in Europe, including the strike against Paris Saint-Germain FC on 16 April 2006 that won Lyon their fifth successive title.
Fred rounded off the campaign with a hat-trick in Lyon's 8-1 trouncing of Le Mans UC 72, form that Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira could not ignore. Fred, who made his international debut against Guatemala in April 2005, was named in Brazil's FIFA World Cup squad and he made his mark with Brazil's second goal in victory against Australia.
