Lyon president Aulas thanks Chelsea for beating Arsenal

After Victory in Baku (woo!), Chelsea are now 2-for-2 in Europa League trophies. Of course, ideally, we would never have to care about the Europa League, and just constantly live our best Champions League lives, but if we’re saddled with the secondary competition, we might as well win it. Getting Sarri his first major trophy and beating Arsenal on the way made it extra glorious, keeping the Gunners out of the Champions League altogether as a result made it extra amusing.

We’re not the only ones celebrating this triumph however, as it turns out. Over in France, fans of Olympique Lyonnais were celebrating just as wholeheartedly, including club president Jean-Michael Aulas, who went on Twitter afterwards to thank the Blues.

Bravo to Chelsea for this beautiful victory in the Europa League, [and] thanks to N’Golo [Kanté] and Olivier [Giroud] who gave us the happiness to participate in the group phase of the Champions League. Bravo and thanks to Bruno for this tremendous performance.

Lyon, under since-sacked coach Bruno Génésio, finished third in the league behind PSG and Lille, which meant that they would’ve had to participate in the qualifying round of the Champions League in the summer. But with Chelsea already qualified for the groups through our third place Premier League finish, OL get bumped up one spot and are thus into the group stages directly as well, taking the spot that was being held for Arsenal as winners of Europa. Except they didn’t win, so it’s not being held anymore. HA-HA!

Also benefitting from Chelsea’s victory are the runners-up from Turkey (Demba Ba’s İstanbul Başakşehir) and Austria (Linz ASK), both of whom get bumped up to the third qualifying round instead of the second, saving them from having to play two extra games this July.

Some of the other matchups in the qualifying rounds also get shuffled around as a result.

You’re all very welcome. It was our pleasure, of course.

But if Mr. Aulas would like to give a sweet discount on Ndombele, we certainly wouldn’t complain...