Wendie Renard on her career so far: ‘It’s an adventure which starts with these players’

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Wendie Renard went straight to the dressing room. She was fuming.

Farid Benstiti, Lyon Feminin’s head coach at the time, had taken a then 17-year-old Renard off in the 61st minute, four minutes after the French side had conceded an equaliser in the first leg of a UEFA Women’s Cup (today’s Champions League) semi-final at home against Sweden’s Umea.

It was March 2008.

The teenager tossed a hairdryer across the dressing-room floor and kicked a bin.

“I was really angry — not with anyone else but myself,” Renard tells The Athletic. “It was unacceptable to make that kind of mistake and concede a goal in that way.”

Renard had tried to protect the ball by the corner flag but Brazilian forward Marta picked her pocket. Renard then fell over and Marta cut the ball back to Madelaine Edlund, who levelled the score. Renard felt ashamed and suffered, in her words, “a triple punishment”.

“I lost the ball, we conceded and I was substituted. For a young player, to handle all that, it was not easy. The week after was difficult. I’ve always been very hard on myself. That’s the only way to progress.”

The goal was a precious one to concede, as Lyon were knocked out on the since-scrapped away goals rule after a 0-0 draw in the second leg a week later. The young Renard rewatched that first game and made a vow. “I said to myself, I never want to go through the same thing again or put my team through that.”

That was more than half her lifetime ago, but the 34-year-old obviously remembers the moment clearly. It was a turning point in a 19-year (and counting!) career at the top of the women’s game, during which she has won 31 trophies with Lyon, including eight Champions League titles, six of them as captain.

Having joined the club in 2006 as a 16-year-old, a player born on the Caribbean island of Martinique is nearing a record for the team, a game shy of her 500th appearance. But before that, The Athletic joined the Lyon and France captain on a trip down memory lane…

Being a teenager at Lyon

Hair braided, wearing a vest top, Renard smiles radiantly as she looks at the official squad photo of the 2007 Lyon women’s team (top photo).

“I was very young — a little bit chubby even!” she says.

Renard rattles off names of the other players, including her then captain and future Lyon head coach Sonia Bompastor, now in the latter role at Chelsea. She is still in touch with many of them.

“Katia Cilene Teixeira da Silva, Sonia (Bompastor), Camille (Abily), Sandrine Bretigny, Sandrine Dusang, Shirley Cruz, Laure Lepailleur, Oceane Cairaty… ah, Hoda Lattaf, I’d forgotten her! It’s (Her career) an adventure which starts with these players here.”

Bompastor and Renard playing for France in 2011 (Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images)

Renard, who took an eight-hour solo flight from Martinique to Paris aged 16 for a trial at Clairefontaine — the elite academy just outside the capital run by the French Football Federation — but did not get chosen, joined Lyon at the right time. Two years earlier, local women’s team FC Lyon had officially become a part of the Olympique Lyonnais organisation, and Jean-Michel Aulas, overall club president at the time, invested heavily.

“He gave us everything we needed and put us in the best possible conditions,” says Renard. “Women’s football at the time wasn’t at all professional but he considered us as pros. I was ‘chucked in the bath’ straight away, I didn’t have time. My lack of experience meant I made some mistakes but I played with and against some extraordinary players.”

Renard developed in an environment where people always thought about winning. She grew up at Lyon alongside, she says, some of the most “intelligent” and “talented” players, who had “big characters” and “a lot of personality”.

The teenager in that squad photo (Renard is back row, second from right) had no experience at all, but year after year she watched, listened and absorbed the qualities of her team-mates, citing Bompastor as “a natural leader” with a “will to win”, Abily, France internationals Cruz and Louisa Necib, and Sweden international Lotta Schelin, all who helped her improve as both a footballer and a person.

“I’ve always been someone who observes and analyses,” Renard says. “That hasn’t changed, even to this day. Ice baths? I like them! I’ve always dreamed of playing football and made it my priority.

“I told my mother, ‘No, I just want to succeed in football, that’s all I want to do’. I knew it wasn’t professional, I wasn’t even thinking about the money. I was just thinking about winning titles, wearing my country’s shirt and making my family proud.

“It’s a long and beautiful road. It’s not finished, but for the moment it’s nice.”

Scoring in the Champions League final

Lyon and Renard won their first Champions League title in 2011, defeating Turbine Potsdam of Germany 2-0.

The year before, Lyon had lost the final on penalties to the same team, so were out for revenge. Renard, playing at right-back with her warrior-mode hairstyle like the mane of a lion, recalls the opening minutes of the 2011 final being a fierce battle.

Renard celebrates scoring the opening goal in the 2010-11 Champions League final (Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images)

“There were a lot of duels, balls in the air, it was really tough. German teams are hard to play against,” she says.

In the 27th minute, Lyon won a corner. “We got this opportunity. I said to myself, ‘We have to score’.”

Bompastor took the corner. Amandine Henry won her duel, heading the ball back into the box, and when Schelin’s shot was blocked, Renard was quickest to react, stabbing the ball into the net with her left foot. “It doesn’t matter how, but I just wanted it to go in,” she says.

The toughest players she’s battled with

The next photo shows one of Renard’s rivals.

“You have a lot of surprises for me!” she laughs. “This isn’t boring…”

“Who is this? It’s Marta! Ah… Marta made me suffer.”

She chuckles as she says it.

“I always grew up hearing: Marta, Marta, Marta, the best player in the world — Marta. Having played her several times for club and country, she has natural intelligence, she’s technical and knows how to position herself. She is one hell of a player. She helped me mature.”

Marta and Renard after France beat Brazil at the 2019 World Cup (Martin Rose/Getty Images)

Renard then references Wolfsburg and Germany player Alexandra Popp and Paris Saint-Germain’s Marie-Antoinette Katoto, a France team-mate, among the most talented forwards she has played against.

Interestingly, she points out she struggles to defend against smaller players because of her 6ft 2in (1.87m) frame.

“My centre of gravity has to be lower,” Renard says. “It requires a lot more speed from my legs, and that’s not my strong point. When you play against intelligent, technical and powerful players, it’s difficult. All these things combined means your brain has to work harder and your positioning has to be better. It’s a battle.”

Winning 31 trophies with Lyon

Lyon Feminin have won 31 trophies since officially becoming part of the club 21 years ago. Renard, who is the appearances record-holder for both the top division of the women’s game in France and the UEFA Women’s Cup/Women’s Champions League, has been part of all of them.

“Is it me?,” she jokes. “No, no, no, it’s a team effort.”

In just under two decades at Lyon, Renard has played for seven managers and seen many players come and go.

“If there’s a lot of upheaval in the team and at the end of the season you still manage to win, it’s great, because the core is still there,” she says. “To win all that with Lyon, with different coaches and players, is my fondest memory and my greatest pride because it shows our consistency and the club’s spirit of always wanting to win, win, win.”

The team’s biggest change came last year when American businesswoman Michele Kang completed her purchase of Olympique Lyonnais Feminin (OLF), making it a separate entity from the men’s team, which is majority-owned by U.S. businessman John Textor’s Eagle Football Holdings group.

Kang with Renard after the player extended her contract last year (Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)

Kang, who already owns NWSL side Washington Spirit and London City Lionesses in the second tier of women’s football in England, is now the majority owner and president of OLF, replacing Aulas after more than 30 years at the helm.

In May 2023, before the deal was finalised, Kang attended Lyon’s 2-1 win against Paris Saint-Germain in the Coupe de France final, wore a medal and participated in the celebrations with the team after Renard led the initial trophy lift with an emotional Aulas.

“Like everyone else, we learned from the press overnight that he (Aulas) had been fired,” says Renard. “When you’ve known this president who has done so much for us, you wonder who is going to take over. You don’t know what to expect.”

When Kang took over OLF, she changed and strengthened their backroom team, bringing in eight full-time staff members. Renard describes her as a “determined” and “ambitious” woman who has had a “direct impact” on the team. She also notes that Kang’s projects are not just limited to OLF but are involved with the global advancement of women’s football.

“As she says, everything which has been done today has been made for men. Whether that’s research, football boots, the menstrual cycle… there’s never been anyone who’s tried to understand the impact on a woman’s body as a sportswoman,” Renard says. “She’s someone who listens. To have someone like that following in the footsteps of President Aulas, to have a woman with the ambition and the means to always want to win, that’s nice.”

What next?

For someone who has won so much silverware, the question is: what else is on Renard’s list?

“Win again!” she says. “We’ve never won the Champions League with her (Kang) before, so our objective is to lift it this year. That would be both beautiful and symbolic for her to launch her arrival with a trophy. We just missed out last year, so this year we have to succeed.”

Lyon face Arsenal at the Groupama Stadium in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final on Sunday, where Renard could make her 500th appearance for the club.

Then there are her national-team ambitions. France’s 168-cap captain, Renard has never won a major trophy with her country.

Semi-finalists in the previous European Championship three years ago and quarter-finalists at both the World Cup the following summer and then the 2024 Olympics, France are gaining momentum ahead of the Euros this July, having already qualified for the Nations League semis at the end of the year with two group games to spare.

Asked whether she thinks France can win this summer’s Euros in Switzerland, Renard says, “That’s my goal. We’ve got a project under way. Now, we need to keep our feet on the ground, not talk, stay in our corner and work.”

Last September, Renard extended her contract with Lyon to the summer of 2027. By the time it expires, she will have spent 21 years at the same club. “I’m staying,” she says. “I’m under contract with Lyon. I’ll always be grateful to this club. The story goes on, so I’m very happy.

“Winning is the only way to make history. Participating is good, but leaving a mark is even better. I try to be as professional and consistent as possible, and then I’d like to leave a beautiful trace: my club’s name and mine on every possible title.”

(Top photos: Wendie Renard’s collection; Charlotte Harpur/The Athletic)

This news was originally published on this post .

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