“Happy hunting ground” is one of those football phrases suffering badly from inflation.
Win twice somewhere over the course of a decade and suddenly the place is your second home. Nick a couple of victories against a relegation candidate and apparently you should start receiving council tax bills. At this rate, every Premier League club has about nine holiday homes scattered around England.
That is not what we are looking for here.
Doragon Sports’ Happy Hunting Grounds is reserved for something more substantial: those strange corners of the footballing map where one club repeatedly arrives, plants its flag and behaves with the unreasonable confidence of somebody who knows where the spare key is kept.
For Lyon, there are some wonderful examples.
Glasgow. Bucharest. Amiens.
Different countries, competitions and generations of players, but the same curious outcome.
Lyon turn up.
Lyon score.
Lyon usually go home rather happy.
Ibrox Stadium: Lyon’s Scottish Holiday Home
There cannot be many European clubs that arrive at Ibrox and regard scoring three or four goals as something approaching tradition.
Lyon might.
Their three competitive visits have produced three victories, nine goals and, wonderfully, an opening Lyon goal inside the first 25 minutes every single time.
The latest came in October 2024 and was probably the most emphatic.
Malick Fofana required barely nine minutes to announce himself in Glasgow, giving Lyon the lead before Rangers briefly responded through Tom Lawrence. The equaliser merely irritated the visitors. Alexandre Lacazette restored Lyon’s advantage five minutes later and then produced the evening’s postcard moment, curling a gorgeous 25-yard effort into the top corner before half-time.
Rayan Cherki then supplied Fofana for his second after the interval.
Rangers 1, Lyon 4.
Three years earlier, Steven Gerrard’s 50th European match as Rangers manager had suffered a similarly French interruption. Karl Toko Ekambi struck after 23 minutes before James Tavernier’s unfortunate own goal completed a controlled 2-0 Lyon victory.
But the result that gives this particular hunting ground some historical weight came in December 2007.
This was not some disposable group-stage evening.
Rangers needed only a draw to reach the Champions League knockout rounds. Lyon needed to win.
Sidney Govou scored after 16 minutes.
Then, with Rangers chasing the game, a 19-year-old Karim Benzema appeared with goals in the 85th and 88th minutes to turn tension into demolition.
Three visits. Three wins.
And Lyon have led first every time.
There is another lovely thread running through it. Benzema scored twice in 2007. Lacazette scored twice in 2024. Fofana scored twice that same night.
Apparently Lyon strikers don’t merely enjoy Glasgow.
They order seconds.
Bucharest: Lyon’s Eastern European Goal Buffet
If Ibrox brings ruthless efficiency out of Lyon, Bucharest apparently causes them to lose all interest in moderation.
Across three visits to Steaua București/FCSB, Lyon have scored eleven goals.
Three.
Five.
Three.
The most recent instalment arrived in March 2025, when Lyon visited the Arena Națională for the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie.
Nicolás Tagliafico headed them ahead after half an hour, but FCSB equalised through Alexandru Băluță and threatened to turn the evening into something uncomfortable.
Then Malick Fofana arrived.
Introduced from the bench, the teenager restored Lyon’s lead in the 86th minute from a Rayan Cherki pass and scored again in the 90th as a tense European away leg suddenly became a 3-1 victory.
That late cruelty has precedent here.
In October 2008, Lyon somehow managed to make winning 5-3 away in the Champions League look like the sensible conclusion to an evening in which they had been 2-0 down after eleven minutes.
Kader Keïta and Karim Benzema dragged them level. Steaua went back ahead before half-time.
Then came the avalanche.
Fred equalised after 69 minutes, Benzema put Lyon ahead two minutes later and Fred scored again in stoppage time.
Even Lyon’s comparatively uneventful trip in September 2006 ended 3-0.
Fred opened the scoring before Tiago Mendes added another and a teenage Benzema emerged from the bench to score in the 89th minute.
That makes the final stages particularly hazardous territory for Romanian hosts.
Benzema in the 89th in 2006.
Fred in the 92nd in 2008.
Fofana in the 86th and 90th in 2025.
Different generations, same unpleasant habit.
When Lyon visit Bucharest, apparently the final whistle isn’t something their opponents anticipate.
It is something they survive.
Stade de la Licorne: Lyon’s Picardy Playground
Amiens represents a different species of happy hunting ground.
There are no exotic European flights here, no famous continental nights and no enormous hostile arena.
Instead, Lyon simply kept visiting the Stade de la Licorne and finding increasingly elaborate ways not to lose.
Their most recent trip, in September 2019, finally interrupted the winning sequence without actually producing defeat. Christophe Jallet put Amiens ahead from a free-kick after seven minutes before Moussa Dembélé responded almost immediately and struck again before half-time.
Then came a particularly Lyon-flavoured twist.
Mathieu Bodmer, another former Lyon player, equalised in stoppage time.
Amiens 2-2 Lyon.
Eight months earlier, Lyon had visited twice within three days.
Yes, really.
First came a Coupe de France meeting in January 2019. Dembélé and Bertrand Traoré scored in a 2-0 victory before Khaled Adénon was dismissed.
Three days later Lyon returned for Ligue 1 business and won again, this time 1-0 through Jason Denayer.
The previous month had been considerably noisier.
Dembélé, Traoré and Martin Terrier put Lyon 3-0 ahead in the Coupe de la Ligue before Amiens staged a late rebellion. A Denayer own goal and Cheick Timité’s stoppage-time strike made it 3-2, but Lyon escaped.
And if there is one thing this ground seems to enjoy, it is late nonsense.
Back in December 2017, Serge Gakpé gave Amiens an early lead that survived until the 79th minute. Houssem Aouar equalised. Gaël Kakuta then hit the post with an 88th-minute penalty that could have won it for Amiens.
Four minutes into stoppage time, Aouar scored instead.
Brutal.
Even the archaeological layer of this particular Lyon obsession contains treasure. In February 2001, Steed Malbranque scored twice here in a 2-0 Coupe de la Ligue quarter-final victory on Lyon’s route to winning the competition.
The recurring names are striking.
Dembélé scored repeatedly. Traoré kept appearing. Aouar and Malbranque both produced braces.
And poor Khaled Adénon managed to get himself sent off against Lyon at this ground twice in consecutive months.
Some happy hunting grounds are built upon tactical superiority.
Others apparently require one opposition defender to keep seeing red.
Lyon Keep Finding Their Favourite Corners of the Map
That is what makes a genuine happy hunting ground interesting.
It cannot merely be a collection of wins.
There needs to be something peculiar about it.
At Ibrox, Lyon score first. Every time. Three competitive visits have produced three victories, with Govou, Toko Ekambi and Fofana all breaking through inside 25 minutes.
In Bucharest, they score in ridiculous quantities and become particularly unpleasant as the clock approaches 90.
At Amiens, the games descend into late goals, red cards, former Lyon players scoring against Lyon and Lyon players repeatedly producing braces.
The personnel change.
Benzema becomes Lacazette. Juninho gives way to Cherki. Malbranque disappears into history while Dembélé, Aouar and Fofana take their turns.
The pattern survives them.
And that is the standard for this series.
We are not interested in discovering that Lyon once beat somebody 2-1 in 2014 and then returned eight years later to nick another one.
A Happy Hunting Ground should feel slightly absurd.
A place where supporters can look through several generations of teams and wonder why the same strange thing keeps happening.
Three grounds down.
There are plenty more flags to plant.
doragon sports 