Official: OL sign Matthieu Louis-Jean (OM) and Martin Buchheit (LOSC)
Olympique Lyonnais announced on Monday the appointment of Matthieu Louis-Jean as Director of Recruitment and Martin Buchheit as Director of Performance.
Reaffirming "its ambition to once again rank among the most competitive soccer clubs in the world", OL has announced its first concrete decisions to "develop its sporting organization". As had been rumoured for several days, OL has snapped up Matthieu Louis-Jean from OM, who has just been appointed Director of Recruitment for the Lyon club.
🚨 L'Olympique Lyonnais restructure son organisation sportive 🔴🔵
— Olympique Lyonnais (@OL) June 19, 2023
Les arrivées conjointes de Matthieu Louis-Jean, directeur du recrutement et Martin Buchheit, directeur de la performance marquent une étape majeure dans notre restructuration
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A former player and OM Chief Scout for the past two years, he will "head up a completely redesigned unit, which will make greater use of data, video and artificial intelligence. The recruitment department will also benefit from a significant increase in resources, both material and human", reads the OL press release.
OL also announced the appointment of Martin Buchheit as Performance Director. Buchheit, who headed up PSG's performance unit between 2014 and 2020, as well as LOSC's performance unit for the last two seasons, will be responsible for "the supervision and coordination, with the technical and medical staff, of physical preparation, sports science, nutrition and development research."
Blanc and Ponsot to remain in place, with a general DS in the pipeline
In addition to these two appointments, OL has confirmed that Laurent Blanc will be staying on, as will Vincent Ponsot, "who retains his duties as General Director of Football and whose missions remain the same: to ensure the feasibility of operations, facilitate them and respond to all the challenges that will arise with the professionalism and rigor we know him for."
Finally, OL has announced that a General Sports Director will shortly be appointed to head Eagle Football (John Textor's structure which owns shares in several other clubs, including Botafogo, Crystal Palace and RWD Molenbeek). His mission will be "to contribute to the positive, shared emulation that will make all the clubs even stronger".