Lyon vs. Anderlecht Preview

By: Inara | August 19th, 2009

I confess, it’s a little weird to be writing a preview for a CL qualifier. The last time Lyon had to worry about those was in the 2000-2001 season. That was practically ten years ago. But after last season’s inglorious third place finish, I’m just grateful that Lyon still have a chance to participate at all – for a while it was looking like Lyon would miss out on Europe entirely.

August 19th, 2008
Stade de Gerland, Lyon
2:45 ET (20:45 CET)

Match background:

The last time Lyon faced off against Anderlecht, it was during the CL group stages in 2003. Both sides managed 1-0 home wins, though Lyon made it all the way to the quarterfinals that year. Of course, the compositions of both teams have changed a great deal since then, with only two players on each squad having been present for that previous encounter.

Currently, Anderlecht have three league games under their belt, and they came away as the winners in each one, which has them in 1st place in the Belgian league. So far they’ve scored 8 goals and conceded only 2. Granted, I wouldn’t classify the Belgian Juliper League as on par with Ligue 1, so I am taking their current results with a grain of salt – a slight grain of salt (though I suppose a purist would argue that there is no such thing as a slight grain of salt since a grain is slight by definition anyway…). The reason for my caution is that Anderlecht have been out of Europe for several seasons now, and they are desperate for a return (the financial windfall is especially alluring), but they have obviously taken steps to help ensure their goals.

Unlike Lyon, who thanks to L1’s UEFA coefficients, were placed in the last round of qualifying matches, Anderlecht had to also play in the third qualifying round before making it to the non-Champions qualifying stages. Basically, it just means that Anderlecht has to play in two more games than Lyon. They faced Sivasspor a few weeks ago and came away with a combined aggregate score of 8-1. So I guess you could say that Anderlect have gotten quite used to goal celebrations.

So far, they haven’t made any summer purchases (nor have they sold anybody), though there has been a great deal of loaning and loan returns. I won’t pretend I know a great deal about their squad, though looking over their squad list, there is a wide range of nationalities that comprise their player base, though Belgian is the most dominant one, for obvious reasons.

As for Lyon…well, their past five games have resulted in one win, two draws, and two losses. The win game against last weekend’s opponents Valenciennes, the two draws were against Le Mans and Deportivo, and two losses were against Sevilla and Porto. All in all, that’s 5 goals scored and 7 conceded. Lyon are sitting in 8th place on the L1 table. Though it does go without saying that there is a vast difference in the quality of Lyon’s opponents and Anderlecht’s.

Team info:

Anderlecht’s coach, Ariël Jacobs, has nearly an entire squad at his disposal. Only Daniel Zitka and Bruzzese remain out due to an ankle and shoulder injury, respectively.

Le groupe d’Anderlecht: Bernárdez, Biglia, Boussoufa, Chatelle, Cordier, De Sutter, Deschacht, Frutos, Gillet, Juhasz, Legear, Lukaku, Mazuch, Polak, Proto, Reynaldo, Sare, Schollen, Suarez, Van Damme, Wasilewski

But as is always the case when it comes to Lyon, of course there are multiple injuries to contend with. Raise your hand if you remember the last time Lyon was injury-free. Yeah, my point exactly.

Le groupe lyonnais: Lloris, Vercoutre – Cris, Bodmer, Boumsong, Réveillère, Cissokho, Grosso – Toulalan, Källström, Makoun, Ederson, Pjanic, Delgado – Mounier, Bastos, Gomis, Lisandro

Francois Clerc, Sidney Govou, and Cleber Anderson are out with various injuries while John Mensah has been dropped from the squad (no doubt because of his impending transfer). None of the little kids, but that’s okay because we don’t really need them for this one.

Lineups:

Because of the lateness of this post, I can offer the actual lineups and not my imaginary one. I’m grateful that this time, I have a decent lineup to report.

Lloris
Reveillere – Cris – Bodmer – Cissokho
Pjanic – Toulalan – Kallstrom – Bastos
Gomis – Lisandro

The backline is obviously. It’s good to see only one DM play, and since Jeremy Toulalan was rested last weekend, it makes sense that he starts today. Kim Kallstrom is also being rewarded for his stellar form so far this season. Interesting, Miralem Pjanic gets the start over Ederson, but it looks like Puel is hoping for Pjanic to offer more creativity. And of course, Michel Bastos, Bafetimbi Gomis, and Lisandro Lopez were going to start. Duh.

Viewing options:

Good and bad news. Fox Soccer Channel will be broadcasting this match, but as for Setanta, only Setanta Ireland will be showing it. Weird, I know. If television isn’t an option, you’ll find many streams here, or if you are interested in stability and ease of access, you can buy a stream from UEFA.com for $10. You can also follow along on Lyon’s official match tracker (check it out, it looks awesome!).

And please share if you find a working link!

Expected result:

I think a 2-1 win is feasible. I don’t have much faith in our CBs, but we’re at home and our strike force seems to be gelling together somewhat.