10 Things I Learned from Lyon vs. Fiorentina

By: Inara | September 17th, 2008

In lieu of a proper match review, I present you with this. Match highlights and photos at the end of the post.

1. When picking Brazilians, it’s Ederson you want. Leave Fred behind with the rest of the garbage.

I don’t mean to come off as a Fred hater, but did he accomplish ANYTHING in today’s match – besides the countless times he squandered easy shots on goal? Yeah, yeah, I know, Fred creates space for Karim Benzema. But if that’s all he does, I’d rather see Frederic Piquionne play up front in that case. While Fred may have been hot shit three years ago, his career has been on a steady decline, and he can’t even muster up a decent shot on goal. Forget actually scoring. Any more displays like this, and Piquionne will be owning that #2 striker spot.

Fred was a waste of air.

2. Lyon need to find a working CB pair ASAP.

Alright, so I understand why Puel chose the back four he put out today. Cris has been utter crap these past couple of weeks (he was the one responsible for both of Nice’s goals), so I get why Puel didn’t want him on the pitch tonight. Mathieu Bodmer, on the other hand, has been stellar in every single instance that he’s played as a defender this season. Ditto for Jean-Alain Boumsong, who hasn’t put a foot wrong since arriving from Juventus eight months ago (remember him against Manchester United?).

Logically, it all made sense. In fact, I was one of the people clamoring for this pairing because they’ve looked really well in previous outings (whereas Cris has only looked rusty). It’s just too bad that it was going to be this night of all nights when things finally exploded. I don’t know who Puel will select for the Bayern game, but here’s hoping that Cris will return to form immediately.

3. Speaking of the defense, how about that left back spot?

As horrible as the noveau Chuckle Brothers were, the person at fault for both of Fiorentina’s goals was Kim Kallstrom, who failed to make any contribution tonight, both offensively and defensively. He played in this position against St. Etienne a few weeks ago, but there’s a huge gap between Les Verts and La Viola. Kallstrom was confused all evening, and coupled with the incompetence of Bodmer and Boumsong, he ran around like a headless chicken and failed to mark his man.

If you’re wondering why John Mensah didn’t get the nod, since he played in this position much more effectively over the weekend, it’s because he was unjustly arrested and brutalized by French police Sunday night, and there were concerns over his mental and physical fitness. But in hindsight, an emotionally disturbed Mensah would have been better than a useless Kallstrom.

OL defense was incredibly slapdash.

4. Lyon were far and away the best team tonight. But that’s not good enough.

Besides the two goals, gifts to Fiorentina courtesy of our Three Stooges in the back, Lyon dominated the match, were dangerous from the first minute to the last, created tons of chances, and played the sort of fluid attacking football that everyone likes to see. However, though Lyon were the best team, they weren’t the most realistic. It’s not enough to be better than the other team. You have to be able to put away your chances, and that’s something Lyon didn’t do time and again. Whereas Fiorentina took the few chances they had and created two goals out of them. It took Lyon twice as many chances to do the same, despite the fact that they had home court advantage and the bulk of the possession.

5. Lyon are starting to become a second half team.

On one hand, it’s nice to know that Lyon have the mental fortitude to come back from a two goal deficit. That, and Puel has a damn good half time talk. Last year, this wouldn’t have been the case. But chasing isn’t as hard as killing, and Lyon’s biggest weakness remains their inability to hold onto a lead (something that Fiorentina also ought to learn). It would also be reassuring if Lyon could begin a match as strongly as they end it, as opposed to the wishy washy way they spend the first 45 minutes of the game.

6. Karim Benzema won’t be around the save Lyon forever.

Today I saw something truly frightening. Karim Benzema, the truly phenomenal striker that saves Lyon from utter ruin every other minute, was the brightest spot on both sides of the the pitch tonight. He was shining so brightly that it’s obvious the rest of Lyon can no longer keep up with him. Right now, most of Lyon’s attacks go through Benzema. But what if he’s injured, and in the long run, what will we do if he leaves? We’re going to lose Benzema sooner or later (though I hope it’s later), and games like these serve to remind us that he really does deserve to be playing for the best team in the world.

Benzegoal to the rescue…again.

7. Every point – and every goal – counts in this group.

Even though Lyon and Fiorentina drew today, it’s Fiorentina who have the advantage because the return match will be taking place on their home ground. Does anyone remember the last time Lyon came away with a win in Italy? But on the flip side, we’ll at least have Fabio Grosso back, and our defense should be sorted out by then.

However, in tonight’s other Group F match, Bayern won at Steaua, though they did so by only one goal. That puts Bayern in the driving seat when Lyon go to Munich in two weeks. Lyon will still be missing Grosso, and who knows what will happen in central defense, whereas Bayern will be at full strength (assuming Franck Ribery meets his target return date). Anything can happen in the next couple of games, so this group will most likely go down to the wire. I don’t think anything will be decided until the last day, and it’s likely that it may even come down to goal differential. So the two completely unnecessary goals Lyon conceded tonight may come back to haunt them.

8. Statistics might not mean much, but boy do they sometimes make you feel good.

Lyon had almost three times as many shots, nearly twice as many shots on goals, forced Frey into twice as many saves, had over two thirds of possession, over four times as many corners, half as many offsides, half as many fouls, and only one yellow card to Fiorentina’s four. Of course, the overwhelming math still resulted in a draw, but the fact that Lyon were able to control and dominate a good team like Fiorentina does a lot for player confidence.

9. Juninho still has it. And when is Toulalan going to score?

Against Nice, it was two terrific free kicks. Today, his long distance shooting was off, but he compensated with the kind of guile that is born out of hard earned experience. When everyone was expecting Juninho to shoot that free kick like he does 99.99% of the time, instead he slotted a clever little pass to Benzema, who used the confusion of the Fiorentina players to his advantage to rescue a point for Lyon.

Jeremy Toulalan was equally decisive tonight, though in a completely different way. He obstructed Fiorentina’s midfield from working and forced them to rely on the wings, and he showed that he could do more than just defend – he was at the heart of a lot of offensive action and had some terrific shots on goal, some of which forced Sebastien Frey into tough saves. He really deserves to score a goal – he’s been wanting it for some time now, but he just has to learn how to control his shots. He has a lot of power on them and has pretty good control, but he doesn’t know where to place the ball strategically. Someone needs to tell him to aim for someplace other than directly at the goalkeeper.

Juninho has more than one trick up his sleeve.

10. Lyon are not cheaters.

In light of the shady game against Nice and now the one against Fiorentina, I feel compelled to defend my team against those who are calling Lyon cheaters, match fixers, and getting special treatment by the league.

Nice: The first two Juninho goals were legit. Watch the Canal+ highlights. The third Lyon goal, a penalty in stoppage time that gave Lyon the win, was in hindsight not deserved. But it was an honest mistake by the linesman, who thought that it was a deliberate hand ball by Vincent Hognon. Notions that the referee was favoring Lyon are ridiculous because he failed to award Lyon a penalty when Fred was brought down in the box during the first half of the game. I don’t see Maurice Cohen complaining about that in his rant Saturday night.

Of course I feel bad for Nice, but it’s hardly the first time that this sort of thing happened, and it’ll continue to happen as long as replay technology isn’t used. How many times have Lyon been forced to give up totally unfair penalties? Definitely a lot more than they are awarded, that’s for sure. Had Nice won an undeserved penalty, no one besides Aulas would care. And that is because there is a double standard amongst the fans and the media. It’s okay when smaller teams benefit from refereeing errors because they are the underdogs and could use all the help they can get. But when it’s a big team, it’s not just unfair but naturally, the league has to be behind it as well.

The reason that Lyon seem to be favored by referees is because they aren’t naive. They know how to win smart fouls, how to avoid getting carded by tackling players just so, know when to argue with the referee and when to shut up, and they are good at utilizing whatever advantage they get, unfair or not. Lyon will never, ever look a gift horse in the mouth. Now, if Lyon missed all their “free” chances, no one would care. But I bet if I looked at all the decisions that went Nice’s way in the past year or so, I’d find quite a few instances of refereeing generosity as well.

Bitch, get out of my face!

Fiorentina: Chris put up a post complaining about the way Lyon scored their first goal. You can also read how Fiorentina fans are taking it. I’m gonna say my piece here.

So what has some people’s knickers in a twist is that a Fiorentina player went gone down, but play continued, which ultimately led to a Lyon goal. Because Luciano Zauri had fallen right next to the net, that meant that Karim Benzema was onside (otherwise he would have been off), so his pass to Frederic Piquionne was valid. Some are claiming that Lyon should have followed the unwritten rule of kicking a ball out of play when a player is down. But because they didn’t, that means they are lying, cheating bastards who have no concept of fair play and who deserve bad karma. Which is hilarious because it was Fiorentina’s bad karma that led to that goal in the first place.

Let’s take a more in depth look at the situation, shall we? If you watch the highlights, players from both teams aren’t even aware that Zauri is down until Benzema is practically on top of him. Zauri at the point starts getting up. The referee saw this but failed to whistle. Now, when you find yourself in a really good scoring position, with your team two goals down and with only 15 minutes left, with the referee continuing play, of course you’re going to keep going. You’d be retarded if you didn’t.

There is a reason the referee didn’t whistle, and that’s because most of the time, a player falls down with fake injuries. It just so happened that Zauri was genuinely hurt (though it wasn’t anything threatening). Fiorentina had already spent the latter portion of the second half committing unnecessary fouls and basically doing whatever they could to halt Lyon’s attacks. They did as much time wasting as they could, so it’s no wonder that no one, neither the referee nor the Lyon players (and even most of the Fiorentina players), took Zauri seriously. In that moment, Zauri’s fall in a rather strategic location seemed too convenient. Lyon naturally took their chance. If anything, it’s Fiorentina’s naivety that’s to blame for not keeping their concentration while the game was still in play. Their inability to hang on to a lead and their discouragement after an unfair call is what prevented them from walking away with three points.

I’m not going to go into the French vs. Italian rivalry that many people are immaturely delving into. It has nothing to do with national identity and everything to do with a murky issue that needs to be clarified. It’s a problem that stretches not only across all leagues and all teams, but in every game. The rule is that you are supposed to keep playing until the referee tells you to stop. But many times, the players will stop the play themselves when someone is down. However, this trust gets abused so easily that it’s no wonder it leads to situations like these. Referees and players need specific guidelines. It’s easy to say that downed players deserve the benefit of the doubt, but they are lying 90% of the time, and it’s so frustrating when a team has to stop good momentum for a fake injury.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.