Lilian Laslandes (born 4 September 1971 in Pauillac) is a former French football striker, who (until summer 2008) played for OGC Nice. He has been capped seven times (debut on 12 November 1997 against Scotland in a 2-1 victory), and scored three goals for the France national team.

[edit] Playing career

His professional career started at the rather late age of 20, starting at the club Saint-Seurin in which he scored 10 goals in his 33 appearances for the club. Auxerre took notice of his talent and snapped him up, all together he played 125 appearances (20 of them played at European level) for the club and scored 47 goals - of which 2 were scored in European cups.

Lillian then moved to Bordeaux on a free transfer on the 1st of August 1997, he was signed for his excellent scoring record and he lived to his name, scoring 47 goals in 119 appearances for the club. Foreign clubs were starting to take notice of the frenchman and his consistent goalscoring ability, clubs in Turkey, England, Germany and Spain were apparently interested.

[edit] Sunderland

Arriving in June 2001, Peter Reid found a replacement for the ageing Niall Quinn. Lots of media hype surrounded the powerful Frenchman as the club paid £3.6m for his signature,^[1] but he struggled to adapt to both the pace of the English Premiership and Sunderland's style of direct football. Laslandes' relationship with manager Peter Reid had also irretrievably broken down^[2]. After 12 games with no league goals and one in the League Cup against Sheffield Wednesday,^[3] Peter Reid decided to cut his losses. Lilian was quickly shipped off in January 2002 to German side FC Cologne on loan, where he played 5 games without scoring, which earned him the derogatory nickname "LasLandesliga". This was followed by a more successful loan to French first division club Bastia for the 2002-03 season, where he scored 8 goals in 30 appearances

Laslandes returned briefly to Sunderland in the summer of 2003 for pre-season training with new manager Mick McCarthy. However, all parties agreed he had no future at Sunderland. Despite chairman Bob Murray's efforts to secure a transfer fee for the former French international, Sunderland's crippling debts, combined with Laslandes' Premiership wages, put Murray in a weak bargaining position, with the result that Laslandes was released from his contract and joined French 1st division club Nice at the start of the 2003-04 season.

[edit] Back at Bordeaux

Bordeaux brought the striker back to the club at the beginning of the 2004-05 season, at place where he had found glory earlier, but as he got older, he never found his old form, only scoring 9 goals in 41 starts for the French side.

[edit] Back at Nice

On January 5, 2007 it was announced that Lillan Laslandes would be brought back to his former club OGC Nice for an undisclosed fee. He was released in Summer 2008. He then decided to become a handball-player for Girondins Bordeaux

[edit] Honours

• AJ Auxerre
  • French championship (1996)
  • French national cup (1994, 1996)
• Girondins de Bordeaux
  • French championship (1999)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Lilian Laslandes career stats at Soccerbase