Laure Maud Yvette Lepailleur (born 7 March 1985 in Bernay) is a former French

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who played for

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As Fr ...

and other French clubs, and for the French national team. Lepailleur primarily played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, but also as a defender.

Career

Lepailleur began her career playing for her hometown club ''Sporting Club de Bernay''. After a stint in the youth system, she joined the women's section of Évreux AC (now Évreux FC). She was later selected to attend

CNFE Clairefontaine The Pole France feminin de Football (English: French Women's Football Pole), formally the Centre national de formation et d'entraînement de Clairefontaine (English: National Education and Training Center Clairefontaine) is a French training cent ...

, the women's section of the prestigious Clairefontaine academy. She played one season (2003–04) with the academy making eight appearances scoring no goals. After leaving the academy, she joined D1 Féminine mainstay

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

. In her two seasons at the club, Lepailleur was a regular in the starting eleven. She helped the club win the 2004–05 D1 Féminine title and the 2005–06

Challenge de France Challenge may refer to: * Voter challenging or caging, a method of challenging the registration status of voters * Euphemism for disability * Peremptory challenge, a dismissal of potential jurors from jury duty Places Geography *Challenge, C ...

. Following the Challenge de France success, Lepailleur moved to up-and-coming club

Olympique Lyonnais Olympique Lyonnais (), commonly referred to as simply Lyon () or OL, is a men and women's French professional football club based in Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The men play in France's highest football division, Ligue 1. Founded in 1950, th ...

and, despite not receiving consistent playing time, helped the club win back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008. Her decreasing playing time, including a short stint playing for the Lyon reserve team in the third division, saw the international moved to impending rivals

. In her first season with the Parisians, she only appeared in 11 matches scoring one goal. For the 2008–09 season, Lepailleur was joined by fellow internationals

Camille Abily Camille Anne Françoise Abily (born 5 December 1984) is a French football manager and former player, best known as a star midfielder for both the French women's national team and for the Lyon club in the Division 1 Féminine. She currently is t ...

Sonia Bompastor Sonia Bompastor (born 8 June 1980) is a French football manager and former player who currently manages Lyon of the French Division 1 Féminine. She is the first person to win the UEFA Women's Champions League as both a player and a manager. Bo ...

, and

Élise Bussaglia Élise Bussaglia (born 24 September 1985) is a French footballer who plays as a midfielder for French club Dijon of the Division 1 Feminine. She was a member of the France national team. Bussaglia is a former winner of the National Union of Pr ...

. The additions helped Paris Saint-Germain reach as high as 1st position with Lepailleur appearing in six of the first seven league matches the team contested.

International career

Lepailleur had previously starred with the women's under-19 team helping France win the

2003 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship The UEFA Women's U-19 Championship 2003 Final Tournament was held in Germany between 25 July – 3 August 2003. Players born after 1 January 1984 were eligible to participate in this competition. The tournament is notable for featuring a penalty ...

, held in Germany. On 13 March 2005, she earned her first cap with the women's national team in a match against

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. On 10 August 2009, she was named to the squad to participate in

UEFA Women's Euro 2009 The 2009 UEFA Women's Championship, or just Women's Euro 2009, was played in Finland between 23 August and 10 September 2009. The host was appointed on 11 July 2006, in a UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Berlin and the Finnish proposal won over ...

, due to an injury to national team regular

Sandrine Dusang Sandrine Dusang (born 23 March 1984 in Vichy) is a French football player currently playing for Juvisy of the Division 1 Féminine. Dusang plays as a defender and is a member of the France women's national football team making her debut in 2003. ...

. Lepailleur had not appeared in any matches during the qualification process and only made one substitute appearance in the tournament as France crashed out in the quarterfinals losing 5–4 on penalties to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

References

External links

* *
France player profile
1985 births Living people French women's footballers France women's international footballers CNFE Clairefontaine players Montpellier HSC (women) players Olympique Lyonnais Féminin players Paris Saint-Germain Féminine players Paris FC (women) players 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup players People from Bernay, Eure Women's association football midfielders Women's association football defenders Division 1 Féminine players Sportspeople from Eure Footballers from Normandy {{France-women-footy-bio-stub