Lyon in Peace Cup

By: Inara | June 11th, 2007

This July, Lyon will be taking part in Korea’s biannual Peace Cup. This is a great opportunity for the players to ~~injure themselves~~ stay in shape during the off season, to win some more fans, and to collect the cash reward.

Hosted by the Sunmoon Peace Football Foundation, the idea behind the Peace Cup is to overcome idealogical differences among countries, races, and religions by sponsoring a football competition featuring clubs from several continents. There is also the Peace Queen Cup for women.

The Peace Cup website is actually quite interesting, filled with player interviews and club profiles (Lyon’s profile is worth reading). Check it out if you are interested in wasting time by reading grammatically incorrect English. You can also download wallpapers.

Eight teams from all around the world will be participating. They are: Seongnam (Korea), Udinese (Italy), Bolton Wanderers (England), Reading (England), Lyon (France), River Plate (Argentina), Chivas Guadalajara (Mexico), and Shimizu S-Pulse (Japan).

This year’s draw divides the eight teams into two groups. The two group winners play each other in the final. The winner gets $2,000,000 while second place receives $500,000.

Group A
Seongnam
Udinese
Bolton Wanderers
Chivas Guadalajara

Group B
Reading
Lyon
River Plate
Shimizu S-Pulse

Match dates are as follows:

12/7 7pm Seongnam v Bolton – Seoul
12/7 8pm Chivas v Udinese – GwangYang
13/7 8pm Reading v River Plate – Suwon
13/7 8pm S-Pulse v Lyon – Busan
14/7 8pm Seongnam v Udinese – SeongNam
14/7 8pm Bolton v Chivas – Daegu
16/7 7pm Reading v Lyon – Seoul
16/7 8pm S-Pulse v River Plate – Busan
17/7 8pm Udinese v Bolton – GoYang
17/7 8pm Seongnam v Chivas – GwangYang
19/7 8pm Lyon v River Plate – Suwon
19/7 8pm Reading v S-Pulse – GoYang
21/7 7pm Final – Seoul

Lyon’s group is the harder one, as it features Argentine giants River Plate, as well as Reading, this year’s surprise package in the EPL. However, I wouldn’t bet against Lyon being the group winner. Kwak Jung Hwan, the chairman of the Peace Cup Organizing committee, predicted that Lyon would be in the final because of their “strong and well-structured team plays.”

He also neglected to mention that Lyon were runners-up the last two times the competition took place. Lyon finished second to PSV in 2003 and in 2005, lost to Tottenham in the final.

GAWD. Lyon can’t even win a damn pre-season tournament against weaker opposition. Their inability to win a final is a curse, I tell you.