Lyon have announced Peter Bosz as their new manager, with his contract running until 30th June 2023.
Lyon Announce Peter Bosz as New Manager
New Boss at Lyon
Peter Bosz has over 20 years of coaching experience, with over 400 games managed including Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund and Ajax.
In March, at his last job in Leverkusen, Bosz was sacked with his team seven points adrift from Champions League qualification.
Previously, the 57-year-old Dutchmen had taken Ajax to the Europa League final in 2016-7, where his side lost 2-0 to Manchester United.
But Bosz is yet to win a major title as a manager; he has won the second Dutch division with Heracles Almelo and guided Bayer Leverkusen to the DFB Pokal final.
As a player, Bosz plied his trade at many clubs including Toulon and later Feyenoord, where he won the Eredivisie as well as three Dutch cups.
Lyon Looking to the Future
Lyon appoint Bosz looking to kick on from their fourth-place finish this year. The club will be able to look forward to European football, but fans must settle for Europa League rather than Champions League action.
Bayern ended Lyon’s Champions League dream in August, thanks to a Serge Gnabry double and yet another goal from record-breaking striker Robert Lewandowski.
Lyon have finished in the top four for five out of the last six seasons, mostly as the third or fourth-best team in France.
But at the end of last season, in what was a dramatic finish to Ligue 1, Lyon dropped points with defeats to Nice but crucially to Lille who snatched the glory away from Paris Saint-Germain by one point. Lyon, meanwhile, were only seven points from the top of the table.
With Paris Saint-Germain’s dominance interrupted, and the growth of Lille, Ligue 1 has been blown wide open again. This makes Bosz’s appointment even more important. He is yet to win a major trophy but has still won league titles at lower levels. As the likes of Lille and PSG look to strengthen in the summer, Lyon must match the development of the clubs around them.
In a press statement, Lyon said: “The profile of Peter Bosz is thus ideal; his arrival reinforces Olympique Lyonnais’ strategic outlook as being one aimed at relying more on players from the Academy, which is currently ranked the third-best in European football, behind Réal Madrid and FC Barcelona and having been in the top four for each of the last eight years.”
Peter Bosz will officially become manager on the 1st of July when the first team return to training.
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