Homecoming: Corentin Tolisso officially joins Olympique Lyon from Bayern Munich

It’s official; Corentin Tolisso has completed his transfer back to Olympique Lyon from Bayern Munich. After five years in Munich, the French midfielder returns to his former club on a free transfer after it had become clear Bayern did not have any plans on renewing his contract at the club. At the time, when Bayern signed him from the Ligue 1 outfit, he was the club’s most expensive transfer, totaling 41.5 million euros in the summer of 2017.

“I’m very happy to come back here and join the club’s new project. Lyon is my city, that’s where I grew up, that’s where I feel I feel good and I’m going back there with great joy. I’ve felt a lot of affection from the fans and I can’t wait to run out in front of them again at Groupama Stadium,” Tolisso said on Lyon’s official club website (via kicker).

Unfortunately for Tolisso, his tenure at Bayern was plagued by serious injury problems, though he did show flashes of brilliance when he was fit and on his day. Performances like the ones he put forth against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League group stages in the 2017/18 season or Atletico Madrid in the 2020/21 group stages showed just what he’s capable of. He was also an integral part of Bayern’s Champion League campaign in the 2019/20 treble-winning season, having scored three goals from ten appearances in the competition en route to beating PSG 1-0 in the final in Lisbon, Portugal.

In total, Tolisso leaves Bayern having scored 21 goals and provided 15 assists from a total of 118 appearances across all competitions and most recently scored two goals this past season that was hampered with injury problems. He had recently expressed that he didn’t feel there was enough communication to him from Bayern’s front office as to whether or not they’d be interested in renewing his contract, but sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic felt that the club made it clear Tolisso wasn’t really in Julian Nagelsmann’s plans moving forward.

Despite the misunderstanding, there is no bad blood between Bayern and Tolisso, it’s just unfortunate that so much of his tenure here was plagued with bad injury problems. From all of us at BFW, we wish Coco all the best back home in France. Danke fur alles!

We leave you with one of his best (arguably) performances in a Bayern shirt: