Can Lyon Make it Six out of Six?
By: Inara | July 27th, 2007Tomorrow is Ligue 1’s traditional season opener, the Trophée des Champions, otherwise known as the French Supercup. It pits the winner of the league against the winner of the French Cup (Sochaux).
Olympique Lyonnais vs. FC Sochaux-Montbéliard
July 28, 2007
Stade de Gerland, Lyon
12:00 PM Eastern Time (18:00 in France)
Some of you may remember that the Supercup was supposed to be held in China. However, the stadium at Wuhan was not ready in time, so the LFP moved the competition back to France. A draw took place to determine where the match would be held, which Lyon won fair and square (though there are some French footie fans out there convinced that Aulas manipulated the results).
This is the second consecutive year it’s been at the Gerland (the third time total). This will also be the sixth time that Lyon is disputing the Supercup. Their previous five wins capped off five successful titles, so Lyon will hoping to repeat that statistic this year.
While the competition is only a friendly, Lyon play every match to win, and it would be annoying for the team to miss out on this easy piece of silverware. The Supercup also gets the players in the mood for the rest of the season (which will be starting next weekend, by the way).
This match also has some emotional stakes as well. Alain Perrin, the man who led Sochaux to their French Cup victory and thus to the Supercup, is now at Lyon. He’ll be the most eager for a win.
Pre-match info:
Lyon will be wanting to continue their successful preseason with one more win before the games start to count. Perrin will be short on some key players, as Fred, Juninho, Nadir Belhadj, and Sebastien Squillaci are still recovering from injuries. Fabio Grosso will not be starting, though he will probably come on as a second-half sub. Sylvain Wiltord has also been left off the match sheet because, according to Aulas, if Wiltord gets injured right before he is able to formalize his departure, it would be “very annoying.” Anthony Mounier and Romain Beynie have also been left out, along with Joan Hartock (all three are youth players).
Le groupe Lyonnais: Coupet, Vercoutre, Clerc, Cris, Réveillère, Müller, Paillot, Grosso, Bodmer, Toulalan, Källström, Fabio Santos, Ben Arfa, Govou, Keita, Benzema, Baros, Rémy.
Although Perrin is missing some players, he will have a very strong lineup at his disposal. He’ll continue experimenting with the 4-4-2, which has so far yielded good results, even when comprised with a haphazard manpower (River Plate, anyone?).
Unlike Lyon, whose preseason yielded a trophy and some cash (the Peace Cup), Sochaux’s preseason hasn’t been going as well. Of the five friendly matches they played, they only had won victory (against Rapid Bucharesti), three ties (Shakhtar Donetsk, Grenboble, and Legia Warsaw), and one rather humiliating 4-2 defeat against Besancon, a reserve side.
Despite the run of bad results, it’s important to remember that Sochaux is still a good side. Not only did they win the French Cup against Marseille, but they also finished seventh in L1, narrowly missing out on the third Champions League spot by a few points (L1 is that tight). They have some good players, and don’t forget that they have a new manager in Frederic Hantz, formally of Le Mans.
Le groupe Sochaliens: Richert, Pichot, Afolabi, Josse, Jokic, Sène, Pitau, S.Dalmat, Birsa, A.Santos, Grax, Dreyer, El Bounadi, Isabey, Nogueira, Quercia, Erding
They also didn’t lose many players during the mercato. Of the handful that did leave, Karim Ziani’s move to Marseille will probably hurt the most. But they have so far managed to hang onto Teddy Richert, one of the better goalkeepers in L1, and Guirane N’Daw, a classy midfielder and a possible Lyon target. However, N’Daw is suspended for tomorrow’s match (weird considering the season hasn’t even started yet), which will make Sochaux’s midfield a little bit weaker.
Prediction: A narrow Lyon victory. Narrow because Lyon are still having problems finding the back of the net, a victory because this is their first home match of the season, and the new players will be wanting to show off. However, Sochaux could take it. The last time they came to the Gerland (last March), they were three goals up until Lyon somehow managed a tie in the last ten minutes. So the game might even go into penalties like it did last year against PSG.
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Sochaux will also be missing the services of Anthony Le Tallec, French Cup hero and current Liverpool reserve. I don’t understand why no French teams want him. Well, I’m sure some do, but we’re not going to just give him away.
Posted from
United States
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Le Tallec returned to Liverpool, so he’s no longer a Sochaux player.
Though I have to ask, what’s the point in hanging onto him if he’s just going to play in the reserves. His value will go down, not up, and Liverpool should try to make what money they can out of him. It might be best for the club to cut their losses and write it off as another one of Houllier’s misguided signings (FYI, I don’t think Le Tallec is a bad player, but he was too young when he left).
Another wasted talent, that one. He’s further proof that young players should stay closer to home until they develop. He, Gourcuff, Aliadiere, Florent Sinama-Pongolle, probably Bakari Sagna too – should have stayed in France until they at least hit 22.
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United States -
If Lyon don’t win this game, I would be very disappointed.
The “trophee des champions” has so far always set the pace of the first half of the season. A loss wouldn’t be encouraging.I think Lyon should be able to pull it off easily (a bit like against Lorient 2 years ago).
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Japan -
Yeah, Le Tallec literally just ’showed up’ at a recent reserves match. It was sort of weird.
I don’t know what the deal with he and Rafa is, but we have received decent offers for him. I believe around £2m, so I don’t understand why he wasn’t sold.
With the addition of Lucas this offseason, I don’t see any chance of him every playing for the first team again, unless major disaster strikes. And we’re talking catastrophic injuries. I would currently put him a very optimistic sixth in the central midfield spit, though Jack Hobbs could easily be ahead of him.
Maybe Rafa does have plans for him, but as for now, I agree, such a waste of talent. At least we sold to Pongolle to Recreativo.
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United States -
I’l be there, this afternoon. Here the weather is very sunny, and hot, so we’ll go the “parc de Gerland” with lyon’s supporters friends, one hour before the match. That will be a nice football afternoon
I’ll be your “Envoyé special”, as usual
Be back here this evening to write what I’ve noticed during the game. That will be the first match with new shirts, and first apparition of Grosso.Posted from
France -
Lyon should win this one, even if they’re missing some key players. I’d bet on a 2-0 win for Lyon, Baros and Toulalan hitting the net.
As for the players who left France, I think they made the right choice. Le Havre was never going to get Le Tallec or Sinama-Pongolle to the level they have achieved. Sinama-Pongolle got 11 goals in the liga last season, something he wouldn’t have been able to do if he hadn’t left le Havre. Le Tallec has also become a better player by leaving le Havre. I think that since Le Tallec is 22, he is worth more than 2M£. Probably more in the region of 4M£. Gourcuff has also moved up a level since he moved to AC Milan. His performances in AC Milan’s side were alien to what he was doing last year for Rennes. He was really a lot better. Aliadière is perhaps the most dissapointing of all those that left france young. But his talent was hampered by frequent injuries, not by home-sickness. Nothing says that he would have fared any better had he stayed in france.
But don’t forget that players who have succeded very well also left france young : Anelka, Vieira, Diaby, L.Diarra, Frey, Escudé, Saha, Cissé, A.Diarra, Ribery, Sagnol, Evra, Trezeguet, Faty, Dervitte…
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Well, most of the French players you listed left after they hit 20. The ones that didn’t are not regulars.
I guess what I meant to say, is if a player is going to go foreign, they should go to a club that they get significant playing time in. Gourcuff, Diarra, Diaby, etc were drafted into big clubs, and while that’s a testament to their talent, staying another year or so in France wouldn’t have hurt their progress but instead, would have given them more practice.
I’m glad that players like Nasri and Benzema are staying in France. Nasri especially. He’s talented, but despite having Madrid super interested, Marseille is the best place for him now, though it’s obvious that he’ll grow beyond Marseille soon.
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United States -
Inara, i will give you Aliadiere, but Sagna is 24 and isnt all that great, moving out of France is something that may help his development. Gourcuff already is so much better then he was with Rennes, although at Rennes he was incredible. Thing is he wont play as much as he needs to at milan with seedorf and pirlo in front of him. He will be the future CM for France though, thats for sure. Le Tallex and Pongolle didnt neccessarily move to early, they moved to the wrong club, and they were loaned out to the wrong clubs. If they moved to lyon i dont think they would have done any better, so livepool definately wasnt ideal. The thing with them is Ged has no trust in young players, so why go to a club where the coach wont play you. Le Tallec, pongolle, and Aliadiere was suppose to be the next generation of French strikers, but instead we debate between henry, trez, saha and anelka still, when they should be fading out slowly. Briand, Benzema, Menez and Gomis are the next generation, along with Ben Arfa, Nasri, Gourcuff, Clichy, Kaboul, Lloris, and Faty will make up the bulk of the squad at the next World Cup, i hope. all of these players together have the ability to beat anyone in my opinion, and seeing as how all except Gourcuff will play consistently this year they will further develop, although Gomis, Faty and Lloris may need to move on sooner rather then later. keep your fingers crossed for the future national team.
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United States -
Ohh and Nasri will move to Madrid, and he will do well there, but he should hold off for atleast another year. The Zidane stuff will be hard to get rid of, but the lad is incredible, i dont know who is more entertaining to watch dribbling at full speed, Nasri, Ben Arfa, Messi or Nani?
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United States -
Whoops. I got Sagna’s and Kaboul’s ages mixed up. Okay, Sagna is mature enough. Don’t know about Kaboul though.
It’s just that young players crashing and burning is a sight more frequent than it ought to be. While there are some fabulous successes (Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Fabregas), it’s not a formula. I don’t think Nani and Anderson should have moved to MU, for example. I mean, fine, a club wants to invest in young players. Buy them, by all means, but either play them a lot or loan them out. At least United did that with Rossi.
Yeah Gourcuff has gotten better since he left Rennes, but how much better would he have been had he been playing week in and week out? He’s not even a supersub at Milan like Kallstrom is at Lyon. Obviously he should stay at Milan, but I wish he had gone on loan last year to Parma or something.
Ben Arfa is a classic example of too much talent and not enough pitch time (I don’t think Lyon is necessarily the best destination for all young talents either – like if the club buys Willian or Renato Augusto, I’m in favor of loaning them for another year to their formative clubs). Benzema is blossoming because he’s been allowed to play. When Fred went down last season, Benzema put in some great performances before he too got injured.
Nasri should stay at Marseille until Euro 2008. Then he can leave and be a superstar.
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United States -
Nice job winning the Trophée des Champions.
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United States -
Nasri has said he wont move, he is to young. but then again Madrid is buying youner players and promoting youth team players (finally after losing Mata they get their shit together). So Nasri next summer would do well to move to Madrid, i expect Madrid to tie that deal before Euro 08 begins though so his price doesnt sky rocket
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United States
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