While the Olympic football tournament, mostly restricted to players aged 23 or younger, is primarily intended to spotlight the world’s most promising young talents, each squad is permitted to include up to three players older than 23 - and sometimes, these overage players can be the difference between a team leaving with the gold and showing up at the airport empty-handed.
When the squad lists for this year’s tournament were released, one overage player in particular on France’s roster stood out. The player in question is a club legend at Lyon who’s also spent five years playing for Arsenal. With just 16 caps for France’s main team, he has been unlucky to have been buried behind the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud, Kylian Mbappé, and sometimes Karim Benzema. That being said, even at age 33, he’s shown that he’s still got it.
The player I’m talking about? None other than France’s Olympic captain Alexandre Lacazette.
In the host country’s opening match against the United States, Lacazette scored France’s opening goal as they eased to a 3-0 victory. The result was never really in doubt - the skill gap between the two teams was more than obvious. What caught the eye, though, was the fact that despite what many might have assumed just two years ago, Lacazette certainly isn’t washed by any means.
After a dismal 2021-22 season in which Lacazette scored just four Premier League goals for the Gunners, Lacazette returned to his hometown club where he’d played up front for eight seasons before heading for North London in the 2017 off-season. It soon became obvious upon his return to Lyon that Lacazette was a player rejuvenated. In the first season of his second stint at Lyon, Lacazette almost single-handedly carried Lyon to a top-half finish. The club finished seventh in Ligue 1, scoring 65 goals along the way. A total of 27 of those were scored by Lacazette.
Last season, Lacazette backed it up, putting together another strong campaign and once again being Lyon’s best player as he took them to a Europa League spot by finishing sixth in the league. It was Lyon’s first time qualifying for continental play in three years. Lacazette also spearheaded Lyon’s run to the Coupe de France final where they would lose to Paris Saint-Germain.
While it’s absolutely possible that Lacazette might want to finish his career at his beloved hometown club or perhaps even be tempted by a big-money move to Saudi Arabia to finish his career some time from now, as of this moment, what we’ve recently seen from Lacazette proves that for big clubs in need of a striker, he’s certainly worth picking up on a short contract.
Given his age as well as the fact that he’d be arriving from a relatively less prestigious and difficult domestic league, Lacazette could easily be signed for €15 million or less. For example, with Serhou Guirassy just having left VfB Stuttgart for Borussia Dortmund, could Lacazette on a one- or two-year deal be an option worth exploring for Stuttgart?
Or what about Bologna? While head coach Thiago Motta turned heads across the football landscape with his unconventional yet effective strategic approach, the fact remains that only two Bologna players finished with at least 10 goals last season; Dutchman Joshua Zirkzee led the club with 11 goals in Serie A.
Like Bologna, Juventus finished the season with just 54 league goals to their name. Apart from Dušan Vlahović, Juve had no reliable goal threats. If the Bianconeri are to make a serious push for the Scudetto in the coming season, a signing like Lacazette might end up giving them a realistic chance to win the league.
France are the pre-tournament favourites to win it all on home turf - and not just because they have home ground advantage. On paper, this should be a squad that should handle every opponent they face without too much difficulty. Lacazette, who’s the odds-on favourite to finish as the tournament’s top scorer, is a big reason for that - and he proved it once again as he helped give Les Bleus’ junior unit a hot start.
Apart from his dismal 2021-22 season, Alexandre Lacazette has been somewhat underrated for years. If France win the gold, he’ll be getting his long-deserved props at last for sure.
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