Lyon FINALLY win in Style
By: Inara | April 28th, 2007After a dismal run of five games, Lyon got their act together in order to properly celebrate their sixth title.
Celebrating after the match.
This time, it was Le Mans who had to deal with injured Lyon pride. But unlike last year (when Lyon won 8-1), Le Mans put up more of a fight, with the game ending at a respectable 2-1.
Team composition: Coupet, Cris, Caçapa, Reveillere, Abidal, Juninho (Kallstrom, 79eme), Malouda, Diarra, Santos, (Tiago, 70eme), Fred, Govou, (Wiltord, 79eme). Unused subs: Vercoutre, Clerc, Squillacci, Baros
Notice anything interesting about Lyon’s starting lineup? Houllier fielded six Frenchman and five Brazilians. And he still wants more. See what I mean about a Brazilian takeover?
Lyon’s first goal came from Fred at the 38 minute. Fred, as some of you know, has been left off the first team for the past couple of weeks due to disciplinary reasons. What a way to make a comeback. This goal brought his tally to 11 in the league, which might not seem like a lot at first, but then again, he’s only played 1058 minutes this year, so that’s one goal every 96 minutes.
After half time, Le Mans equalized after a huge defensive bungle in which Lyon’s entire back line tripped over their own feet, allowing Le Mans to slip through. It was more comical than anything else. Thankfully, Malouda scored another goal for Lyon four minutes later.
If it weren’t for Le Mans’s goalkeeper, who had a string of huge saves, the scoreline could easily have been 4-1. Lyon had tons of great chances, some of them wasted, but I’m too happy to cry over spilled milk.
This game was fun to watch because the players looked like they were having fun. Malouda played his best game in a long time, and Juninho is showing signs of regaining the form he had in the fall. Cris was excellent, and Cacapa (who regained the captain’s armband for this match), had a good game as well. The two weakest players today were probably Govou and Fabio Santos. Govou kept running after the ball but couldn’t do anything with it while Fabio Santos was played out of position, so I’m not sure exactly how he should have performed. Also, disgraced Alou Diarra found his way back into the starting lineup.
And the atmosphere at the Gerland was incredible! Every seat was taken, and confetti, fireworks, banners, flags, just everything was in the air. Aulas arranged for fireworks and music after the match, which everyone stayed around to watch. It wasn’t the proper trophy celebration (which they’ll get on the last day), but it was a reward to the Lyon supporters who were disappointed by the last couple of games.
Pictures of the post-game celebrations.
Yes, that’s Cris pouring water on Aulas and Cacapa.
Sydney Govou, Juninho, and Florent Malouda…in wigs.
Has Milan Baros found his new BFF in Kim Kallstrom?
Juninho and Tiago saluting the crowd.
The players on a “victory lap.”
Even Houllier is cracking a smile. Well, half a smile.
This man is the real reason that Lyon is so strong: Jean-Michel Aulas.
Lyon footballers work part time for Circ du Soleil.
The Gerland went crazy!
If you haven’t realized by now, I have a huge crush on Tiago. Even when he looks ridiculous.
Houllier and Fred. Did they kiss and make up?
There are some other fabulous matches that took place this weekend in France. Sam will have Ligue 1’s weekly update for you after tomorrow’s fixtures are over.
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Tags: Florent Malouda, Fred, Gerard Houllier, Le Mans, Ligue 1, Lyon, Match Results, Pictures, Player News and Rumors, Team News and Rumors, Title, VideoSubscribe
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Comments
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Hello Inara, while browsing the net as I wanted to find other sources than l’Equipe’s, I found this website and I must say I’m pretty surprised, because of the quality and the details of the topics but also because it’s written in english (as you must have guessed I’m french).
Are you french ? If so you’ll have to tell me how you managed to get such a good english, and if not, how come you are interested in Lyon, part of a so-called rubbish championship ?
Keep it up with the good work, overall with providing “clever rumours” about potential transferts
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United States
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Hi Thomas, thanks for stopping by!
Thanks to the advent of google news alerts, as well as many footie tabloid sites, I’m able to keep track of most rumors involving Lyon. It’s hard to watch the games here, since they are broadcast rarely, but I can watch highlights on Lyon’s website.
To answer your question, no, I’m not French, nor do I live in France. So I can see how it might seem kind of strange that I have a Lyon fixation.
I wasn’t interested in football until a few years ago, when I was visiting my cousin in France. She took me to see an OL-PSG game, and I got interested in the sport. It wasn’t until a while later when I had to fill in as sports editor at my college newspaper that I started paying attention to “soccer” seriously. Lyon became my favorite because it’s my first! And…they play beautiful football plus have a wonderful team. And I also admire the way they rose to prominence. It’s a lesson for anyone, whether a football fan or not.
As for Ligue 1 being a rubbish championship, it always makes me sad when other people see it that way. People often mistake Ligue 1’s low goals-per-game ratio and Lyon’s dominance that it’s a crap league, but that’s not true. French play has recently become defensive, with less reliance on their strikers (goals come from all over the pitch). And…Lyon’s dominance is due to money, quite simply. I’m sure if someone gave Lille or Toulouse even half of Lyon’s budget, they would do some very serious damage.
I can go on and on about that, so I better stop.
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Thanks for answering
These are things I don’t know a lot about – RSS stuff, alerts about a certain topic – that’s why apart from the official big french sports-dedicated newspapers (we don’t have any tabloids here, thank god…), I have very few information about my team (which seems to be yours too).
Don’t worry about how matches you get to see, because, to be honest, I don’t see any apart from those I directly go see at Gerland. It’s a private society, Canal+, which owns the rights of L1 (for a silly high price, but that’s another story) – thus you don’t get to watch any of the L1 unless you pay the fee.
You are right about anything you said about Lyon. JM Aulas took over the club 20 years ago while it was in L2 trying not to go down. As you said, Aulas is hell of a president and a very competent and commited leader. You are still right when saying Lyon’s budget gives them even more power to dominate the league, but once again (and this is something some jealous old-famous-clubs can’t manage to understand), it’s not come by magic. Rome wasn’t built in one day, or whatever the saying is.
But as far as I can see, Lyon’s getting more famous all over Europe and getting the same status as a Valencia or Arsenal – serious outsider everytime they’re in the champion’s – and I think I’m not wrong when saying with their first phase, Lyon scared Europe with its playing. I’m just a bit reluctant to see some players obviously on the departure (like Tiago, who’s such an asset), but Lyon today needs to restructurate the team to be more competitive, that’s all.
For L1, don’t over-rate it, because we aren’t stealing all of the critics we have – it’s definitely poor in the majority of the games, though we have many teams full of potential that are following Lyon as an example (Sochaux, Lille, Lens, Toulouse…). But the main problem is that L1 is a great place to rise youngsters’ popularity, before they leave to a best-rated championship. The truth is that if we could keep all our talents we would for sure more seen as a good championship.
Anyway, great job for your analysis which I shared (at least the ones I read), and keep on spreading FOOTBALL (:))over the USA.
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A friend of a friend of a friend of mine told me about Park Chu Young coming in Lyon. Any idea ?
PS : Where is my little french flag at the bottom of my posts ?
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Put Fred in the game and he scores instead of banishing him. All the players that were banished did well, despite what you say about govou, he isnt as rubbish as you say Inara ;-p
Fabio Santos never looked the part and he was an impulse buy that should be shipped out in the summer.Posted from
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Thomas: Well, where I live, there is barely any information available when it comes to French football. The only magazines they sell in the stores are the big ones, like Champions and FourFourTwo. That’s about it. Most of my information comes from my trusty google news and blog alerts. In a lot of French blogs (like my favorite, http://www.olympique-and-lyonnais) they post the latest information. It’s in French, so it’s not really accessible to the non-French speakers.
Lyon has done a pretty good job in keeping their team together, but I think now might be the time to let some people go. Malouda and Tiago would be a huge loss, but I think Aulas’s attitude is that if they don’t leave this summer, they’ll leave next summer, so he has to decide when is a better time to cash in on them.
He knows that unless a player is as old as Juninho or Coupet, or one in a million like Govou (in terms of loyalty, I mean), everyone is at Lyon to advance their careers. No one wants Lyon to be the last stop on his resume. It’s sad but true.
Lyon has enhanced their reputation in Europe, but now it’s a question of proving that they don’t bottle big matches. If they can have one major win in a KO tie (PSV, Werder, Real Sociedad aren’t as scary as say Barca, Liverpool, etc), I think it would show people that Lyon can win when they’re under pressure. Beating Real Madrid two years in a row isn’t enough, IMO.
And I’m under no illusions that Ligue 1 will be breaking into the top three leagues anytime soon, but I get annoyed when people say it’s on par with the Russian and Dutch leagues. The truth is that France has a lot of talented players but can’t afford to keep them. So ultimately, French clubs are forced to build their team around the left overs.
About the flag – I think it shows what country your IP originates from.
I did hear something about Park Chu Young in February, and he might have been scouted by someone from Lyon (I don’t think it was Lacombe), but they might have judged him either not be ready or not be a good fit for the club.
Corey: I’m not sure what’s going to happen to Fabio Santos. On one hand, he’s loose change at the moment, especially because there will be another DM coming in this summer (either Aldo Duscher or Jean II Makoun). But it sucks because Lyon brought him over on a four year deal, and he said he wants to stay. Perhaps he was promised a bigger role at the club, because I don’t know what player would give up being captain of Cruzeiro to play ten minutes every three weeks.
He’s another player ruined, like Pedretti and Diarra.
As for Govou – one of these days, I’m going to dedicate a post to him and explain exactly why I have so many issues with Sid. He’s equally frustrating and amazing.
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I would like to see that Govouo thread. I would not judge Diarra as ruined yet, but he wont progress much with Houiller in charge. Sometimes I feel like alot of the players are not getting better with Ged in charge, they are taking a step back because of the tactics and the atmosphere at the club these days. Oh and by the way, did you see Coutaduers performance against us, I like him alot, he could really be something special, same with Louvion. Le Mans has some great young players.
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