Whatever problems may exist in the French soccer universe, player development probably isn't one of them. A quick look at the number of French-trained players collecting big cash from top-flight European teams speaks volumes, even if you don't count the small army of Frenchies herded across the Channel to Arsenal by French coach Arsene Wenger in recent years.

Among the various player development centers in France, none has been more successful than that of Lyon: while Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema is certainly its most well-known product on the international scene today, the list of names is long and includes—in addition to an unprecedented percentage of OL's current roster—Loïc Rémy, Hatem Ben Arfa, François Clerc...indeed, somewhere around half of the likely starting 11 for the French national team will have spent at least some time in the Lyon system.

So...why not go check out the next generation? A few observations from Sunday's match:

  • In terms of skill and talent, French soccer appears to be in good hands. Or feet. We're talking about kids here—some of them as young as 15—and yet, taken as a group, their combination of athleticism and technical skill is astounding. Standing there watching the match, it occurred to me with violent realism that the United States will never be able to compete on the international soccer stage without a complete rethinking of its youth program. Most of these kids are the age of American high school sophomores or juniors and they'd already spent several years in a soccer-oriented education program, developing skills that we don't normally see stateside until the college level. Something akin to a dozen or so soccer versions of the Bollettieri Academy would probably do the trick.
  • Elite-level soccer is, in fact, a really violent contact sport. I've long suspected this, but from the upper deck or on television it's hard to tell: you don't hear the contact, you don't appreciate the speed and, with grown men executing rehearsed whining routines every couple of minutes (see below), it's easy for a fan of rugby or American football to write off the whole soccer enterprise as a fancier version of junior-high field hockey. But no: in fact, they really are kicking the hell out of each other in a way that doesn't become clear until you watch some high-end talent from very close-up in a quiet setting.
  • Simulation, unfortunately, also seems to be well-taught at the developmental level. Like the violence mentioned above, the simulation is even more shocking up close. What shrieking! What crying! It sounded like a battlefield without gunfire. At two minutes it started: a Lyonnais defenseman went down with such a cacophony that for two seconds I really thought he'd had his leg broken. He pleaded with the ref while writhing on the ground, shrieked some more, begged for unneeded medical attention, called his assailant names...and then got up and trotted back to his position. This same player—who I won't name, seeing how he's just a kid and all—was the frontman for a two-team whine-fest that persisted for the whole 90 minutes. It was vile. Do they actually teach this in practice?

(I have to give credit to the Nice coach, though: in the first half, the ref made a questionable call against Nice. While the whole team assailed the official, a Lyon player wisely put the ball in play, feeding an attacker who scored the game's first goal. As the young Niçois expressed their displeasure with the man in yellow, the voice of the Nice coach cut through the morning air: "THE REF MADE A MISTAKE, SO WHAT!?!? SHUT YOUR PIEHOLES AND PLAY SOCCER!!!" It was a beautiful moment.)

  • Ronaldo hair isn't going anywhere. ronaldohair.jpgI am sad to report that an entire generation of young soccer stars thinks that Cristiano Ronaldo has cool hair and has decided to emulate it. At least 2/3 of the players on the pitch Sunday sported some variety of the half-mullet, half-overslept guinea pig disaster immortalized by the Portuguese star. Who, incidentally, is one of the biggest whiners in the history of the game...is there a connection here?
  • Officials are in training, too. One of the more interesting aspects of French soccer officiating is that the refs follow a similar career path as the players: they are trained from a young age, with the most promising young officials being promoted to the next level. Developmental-level matches, then, see developmental-level officiating. Instead of the moonlighting professionals who officiate high school sports in America, at an U19 soccer match here you get what seem to be U19 refs! Elite soccer, a notoriously difficult sport to officiate, does not lend itself to young referees who lack confidence (or, in the case of the far line judge, the ability to run up and down the sideline). Although it in no way excuses the pathetic behavior of the players towards said officials, the officiating was admittedly problematic.

All in all, it was a pretty interesting Sunday morning.