It’s difficult to overstate Juninho’s legendary status at Lyon. Between 2002 and 2008 the club won seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles, a run even PSG have not matched. Alongside winger Sidney Govou, goalkeeper Grégory Coupet and outspoken president Jean-Michel Aulas, Juninho was one of few constants at the club. Where many dynasties are built around a single manager, four contributed to Lyon’s run. The club’s intelligent recruitment and Aulas’ oversight were pivotal during their success but Juninho’s gloriously unerring free-kicks from every position remain the iconic image of that period. Now, after a quiet revolution, “Juni” has returned.

Juninho Pernambucano is unquestionably Lyon’s greatest ever player and a titan of French football. As a result, he carries significant capital with what has recently become a fractious and aggressive Lyon fanbase. Fan campaigns against Bruno Génésio – who is stepping down as head coach at the end of the season – had become toxic, with divisions emerging between the coach, the board and the supporters. Juninho’s introduction is designed to ease those tensions. Earlier this month, when his return as sporting director was merely rumoured, Juninho’s name was sung before any free-kick in shooting range during Lyon’s draw with Lille.

Juninho will act as a general manager or technical director, with Bernard Lacombe and Gérard Houllier continuing to advise on transfers and Aulas remaining central to negotiations. Given the club’s prosperity in the market of late – their signings last summer have all been successful this season – changing their approach to recruitment would be baffling. Nevertheless, Juninho has already started work on next season from Los Angeles, his family having left Brazil following the election of Jair Bolsonaro. His first major decision was appointing the club’s new manager.

Given Aulas’s prominence in the day-to-day running of the club during his three decades at the helm, his decision to give Juninho so much responsibility, and so suddenly, marks a considerable shift. Since Génésio announced he was leaving, Aulas has been vocal about appointing a “big name” manager, with José Mourinho, Arsène Wenger and Rafa Benítez all linked to the job.

Aulas has also said he wants a manager who understands the club. “When 50 to 70% of the squad comes from the academy, we have an interest in having a coach who has OL DNA,” he said last year. Juninho may be a club legend, but the man he has chosen to coach the team, Sylvinho, has no links to Lyon or French football. The former Barcelona, Arsenal and Manchester City full-back – best remembered in England for a swerving volley at Stamford Bridge in 2000 – has never led a club team. At a time when Lyon need success, he is a surprising, risky appointment.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sylvinho served as Roberto Mancini’s assistant at Inter. Photograph: Claudio Villa/Inter via Getty Images

Appointing a more established manager such as Wenger would have been more expensive, but such an appointment may have made more sense. Lyon have not won a trophy in seven years and their underachievement has become overbearing of late amid PSG’s dominance. Their prolific academy should have guaranteed success in the last decade but various talented teams have failed, leading to a growing sense of frustration. Lyon need success now.

To expect speedy success from a first-time manager with no direct link to Ligue 1 or the club itself is extremely optimistic, but it would be wrong to brand Sylvinho inexperienced. He has been coaching for nearly a decade, largely as an assistant. He was Roberto Mancini’s assistant at Inter; he took on the same role under Tite for the Brazilian national; and earlier this year he was appointed manager of the Brazil under-23 team in the build-up to the Olympics next summer.

Nevertheless, Aulas knows the Juninho-Sylvinho ticket is a gamble. “When you’re an entrepreneur and invest €500m in a single stadium, life is full of risk-taking,” explained the 70-year-old Frenchman after Lyon’s 4-0 win over Caen on Saturday – a result that secured their place in next season’s Champions League preliminaries. “It is a cleverly calculated risk.”

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Cleverly calculated choices have formed the basis of Aulas’ successful 30-year stint in charge of Lyon, but Sylvinho’s appointment represents a seismic departure. He is the club’s first foreign coach since the early 1980s; he is largely lacking in “OL DNA”; and he was picked without Aulas’ input. Sylvinho may be a well regarded coach – the Brazilian federation were disappointed by his exit and extracting him from his contract was tricky – yet he has moved to a huge, underachieving club where fans are impatient. Juninho’s legendary status and his “love story with Lyon”, as Aulas put it, may erode faster than either man is expecting if their gamble on a rookie coach does not pay off soon.

Ligue 1 talking points

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kylian Mbappé picked up his best player and best young player awards – and then made a statement. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images

• Kylian Mbappé added two more prizes to his trophy cabinet on Sunday night when he picked up both the young and senior Ligue 1 player of the year awards. The 20-year-old is the youngest winner of the senior award in the history of French football. This achievement was quickly overshadowed when he used his acceptance speech to send a stark message to the PSG hierarchy: “This is a very important moment for me. I am arriving at the second turning point in my career. I have discovered an enormous amount of things here. It is maybe the moment to have more responsibilities, maybe at PSG, with pleasure, or elsewhere for a new project.” He later added: “At this sort of event you can send messages, I think I have sent mine.” No chance of a quiet summer in Paris then.

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• St Étienne secured their place in next season’s Europa League on Saturday night, when they whipped an out-of-sorts Nice side 3-0. With a firebrand counter-attacking style, Ligue 1’s oldest current coach, 65-year-old Jean-Louis Gasset has brought a return to Europe for St Étienne for the first time since 2016. However, it appears that this mini-revolution is built on a house of cards. Various news outlets have reported that Gasset – who served as an assistant to Laurent Blanc for many years –intends to step down next week. The coach cited concerns relating to “the size of the squad to compete in Europe,” in a press conference on Saturday, but said he had not yet made his decision. Gasset’s departure would be critical for the club, with lynchpins including midfielder Yann M’Vila already indicating that they will leave if the coach does.

• Nicolas Pépé scored in Lille’s 5-0 win over Angers on Saturday night. He now has 22 goals and 11 assists in 37 league games this season. The 23-year-old Ivorian, whose departure is all but confirmed, has been publicly advised by manager Christophe Galtier to “do his research like he did when he came here and when he decided to stay here – if he goes to a big club with a structure and great players around him, he will become even better.”

• Finally, Monaco all but secured their Ligue 1 status for next season by beating Amiens in a relegation six-pointer. It will take a nine-goal and three-point swing on the final day to put them in the relegation play-off place.

Quick guide Ligue 1 results Show Hide Bordeaux 0-1 Reims

Guingamp 2-2 Nîmes

Lille 5-0 Angers

Lyon 4-0 Caen

Monaco 2-0 Amiens

Montpellier 1-1 Nantes

PSG 4-0 Dijon

St Étienne 3-0 Nice

Strasbourg 0-2 Rennes

Toulouse 2-5 Marseille

Ligue 1 table