Lyon vs. Stuttgart Preview

By: Inara | November 5th, 2007

I think my entire preview can be summarized into three words: Lyon must win. Tomorrow’s game will probably be the “easiest” of their three remaining games in the group stages (though the game definitely won’t be easy). Matchday 5 has Lyon welcoming Barcelona to the Gerland, and Matchday 6 is Lyon traveling to Ibrox.

Stuttgart won’t let Lyon walk all over them.

November 7, 2007
Stade de Gerland, Lyon
2:45 Eastern Time (20:45 in France)

Match Background:

Stuttgart may be in the awful position of having collected no points so far, but a UEFA Cup place isn’t out of their reach, and so the Germans will do all they can to get something out of their visit to Lyon. Stuttgart has a fairly decent record against French opposition - just two years ago they won at Rennes in the UEFA Cup group stage.

For Lyon, even a win on Wednesday doesn’t mean they will qualify, though a loss writes them off completely. A win will also increase pressure on Rangers. There are still two very difficult matches for Lyon after the Stuttgart game, which is why Aulas is being very pragmatic about qualification, going so far as to say that Lyon have a good shot at winning the UEFA Cup (which they’ve never done before, btw). But even if Aulas is pessimistic, the rest of the squad isn’t, many refusing to consider that Lyon’s Champions League dreams are over for this season.

The Teams:

After a very slow season start, Stuttgart seem to be on the road to recovery. They’ve crawled back up to 11th place, and since their loss to Lyon, Stuttgart have picked up three wins, two home and one away. While those victories are hardly reassuring (two were 1-0 and the third was 3-2), it’s proof that the club is now beginning to stand up again. Stuttgart will be full of confidence and eagerness and so shouldn’t be written off as an easy three points.

As for Lyon’s own form, they have been on an upward trend since that disastrous Rangers game, having won all six games and scoring at least two goals per game. Lyon have been looking stronger and playing progressively better, and though injuries are still troubling the team, the players are settling into patterns and can draw on familiarity for comfort.

Player News:

I’ve already done a more in depth overview of Stuttgart’s manager and key players in my review of the Stuttgart-Lyon match, so this time I’ll just provide updated information.

On behalf of Stuttgart (and Jan feel free to add more or correct me), the biggest news is that Thomas Hitzlsperger has returned to first team action. He was out injured during Lyon’s trip to Germany, but this time, he’ll be around to help coordinate Stuttgart’s midfield. Mario Gomez is also looking ominous, having scored in Stuttgart’s last two games. He’s also responsible for the only goal Stuttgart have scored so far in the Champions League, against Rangers at Ibrox.

Thomas Hitzlsperger will return as Stuttgart’s midfield general.

Lyon are probably the healthiest they’ve been in two months. Besides the long term absences of Gregory Coupet and Cris, the rest of Lyon’s senior team should be listed for Wednesday’s match. Alain Perrin has been saying for weeks that Patrick Muller is ready to go, and this weekend, gave him time with the Lyon reserves. As far as I know, Jeremy Toulalan and Hatem Ben Arfa were slated to be back by Wednesday as well. The club website also lists Milan Baros as slightly injured (though he was clearly well enough to break records in his Ferrari), but he should be available too…unless he’s injured for political reasons.

So unless I hear otherwise (and I haven’t so far), I’m going to go ahead and assume that Lyon will boast a full list of senior players (barring Coupet and Cris).

Tactics:

Here is where it gets tricky. Since Lyon have been suffering so many injuries as of late, there was very little choice when it came to fielding a starting lineup. But now that he has a nearly full squad available to him, what will Perrin do? From what we’ve seen, it’s important to keep starting positions somewhat constant because it allows players to get familiar with each other. Constantly changing his midfield set up will just confuse everyone.

I’m not saying that Perrin should experiment, because I also know that he has to figure out the best possible combination of players. Just not during a crucial Champions League match.

Le groupe lyonnais (probable): Vercoutre, Roux - Clerc, Réveillère, C.Anderson, Squillaci, Grosso, Belhadj, Bodmer, Toulalan, Fabio Santos, Källström, Juninho, Govou, Ben Arfa, Keita, Benzema, Baros, Fred.

In the previous post, people have been discussing what lineup Perrin should make his starting XI. Some of them are very interesting, and I plan to email them to Perrin as soon as possible. But as for tomorrow, this is what I would like to see (but probably won’t):

Vercoutre
Reveillere - Squillaci - Anderson - Belhadj
Bodmer - Fabio Santos - Juninho
Govou - Benzema - Ben Arfa

I’m glad that Fred is back on the squad, but until he at least nears good form, I don’t think he should be starting. He can come on as a sub though. Same goes for Jeremy Toulalan, who hasn’t played at all since the France-Lithuania qualifier. I love Jeremy a lot, but I know how crappy he plays when he’s out of form or tired.

I’m choosing Mathieu Bodmer over Kim Kallstrom because Kallstrom has been super flaky lately whereas Bodmer has been attempting to give Lyon’s midfield an entirely different dimension. Bodmer is also a big player, which will help when he comes up against all those tall Germans. As for choosing Nadir Belhadj - well, aside from my blatant favoritism for him, I noticed that he didn’t play last weekend but Fabio Grosso did, though Grosso was just coming off an injury. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but dare I hope that Belhadj starts?

It will be up to Juninho to marshal his team.

And though it pains me to write this, I will have to choose Sidney Govou over Kader Keita. Govou is looking amazing, and you can’t bench a guy who is in the middle of some sort of footballing spiritual revival. It’s for the same reason I would like Anthony Reveillere to start. He’s been playing really well so far this season, whereas Francois Clerc hasn’t played much.

Viewing options:

Here in the country of very poor and limited football programming, only ESPN Deportes will be showing Lyon vs. Stuttgart, and that’s on tape delay (at 4:45 PM). Again, someone explain to me why ESPN deportes chose to show that game out of all games to choose from (they did it last time too). You can also buy a very clear live game stream in several languages from UEFA/ESPN for $7.95. And of course, I will attempt to post stream links to free sites.

Expected Result:

1-0. Call me stingy, but I think Stuttgart will put up a huge fight.