One Life by Megan Rapinoe & Emma Brockes

Author:Megan Rapinoe & Emma Brockes [Rapinoe, Megan & Brockes, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

11

OLYMPIQUE LYONNAIS

I don’t think the French ever really knew what to make of me. When I arrived in Lyon in early 2013, I thought it would be a fun sojourn with better soccer than any league team in the US could muster and an easy way to see a bit more of the world. When I left six months later, I was escaping a coach I didn’t jell with; teammates who didn’t want to hang out; and a period that had been lonely, frustrating, and unsatisfying. I couldn’t wait to get back to the States.

Don’t get me wrong, Lyon itself was beautiful. It’s a stunning city—the third largest in France—in the southeast of the country, bisected by two rivers and full of medieval churches, grand opera houses, and architecture that made me feel I was a long way from Redding, California. Obviously, what I loved most about Lyon was the fact that it boasted the best women’s league side in the world. At the Olympics, a whopping eleven members of the French national team played for Olympique Lyonnais, including Louisa Nécib, Eugénie Le Sommer, and Élodie Thomis, thanks to whose efforts the team had won two consecutive UEFA Champions League titles and six French league championships in a row. I assumed I would fit right in.

Things looked promising at first. I rented a Smart car. I had room for visitors in my two-bedroom apartment, which was underheated, of course—this was Europe—but at least the wi-fi worked. I wasn’t the only foreign player on the team; Olympique Lyonnais Féminin boasted four other top international players—two Japanese players, one from Switzerland, and one from Sweden. Every club-level team I’d played in going right back to Portland had had international players, and we always put ourselves out to make them feel welcome. As the foreigner this time round, I couldn’t see any reason why my experiences would be different.

The stereotype about the French is that they are arrogant, but that wasn’t my expectation. To me, France meant socialism or, at least, social democracy, a more left-leaning interpretation of government than in the US, encompassing universal health care and better welfare provisions. Because of this, I assumed that as a matter of course French culture and society would be liberal, or at least more liberal than in the US. I also assumed the players themselves would be super chill and laid-back. The French way of playing is much more fluid than ours, and almost languid compared to our style. Clearly I’d have no trouble fitting in.

That first expectation—that France would be achingly liberal—was blown apart immediately on my arrival. The headline in Le Monde when I arrived in France was “Gay Icon,” as if no gay person had ever achieved prominence before. As far as I could tell, there were no other out lesbian soccer players anywhere in France, an even worse record than in the US. When I turned up a few days later at the training center in Décines-Charpieu, just outside the city, it was to a scene of mutual bafflement.

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