Bayern vs. Lyon

By: John | December 10th, 2008

December 10, 2008 (I was thinking Lyon should adopt this as their new logo)
Match Day 6
Stade de Gerland
2:45p.m. EST(20:45 CET, 19:45 GMT)

At the rate Lyon’s injury crisis is going, I think the fans at Gerland should show up early and give blood before the match. Lyon’s roster resembles a battlefield medical hospital, with new casualties of war coming in by the day.
Wednesday, Bayern come to Stade de Gerland with a full, healthy squad looking to take first place in Group F from a crippled Lyon side. Although both teams have qualified for the following knockout round with 11 points each, there is still something to play for: top of the group, which historically is an edge in that the top finisher of the group usually has 60% more of a chance of advancing past the knockout rounds than the second place team. The reason for this is that the top seed recieves a home advantage in the second leg of the last 16. So both teams will fielding their best sides and taking nothing for granted.
After drawing 1-1 in their first encounter at Allianz Arena, these will be the the scenarios needed to take top of the group: Lyon have to either win or get a 0-0 draw. If the game ends in a 1-1 or higher draw, then Bayern will be first due to goal differential within overall group play.

Injuries: The usual suspects Bodmer, Pjanic, Clerc, and Reveillere are out, also Faure continues to nurse his knee injury, and the “Glass Ghanean” John Mensah injured his calf or stubbed his toe in training or something; he’s listed as “not certain.” Benzema seems to be a probable to play also, the only ray of light in this injury crisis, because we also lost one striker in Frederic Piquionne who pulled his right quadricep in the Nantes loss Saturday. And leaving the scoring up to Fred alone is not something I’m very optimistic about.
Both Juninho and Cris- I don’t know if Cris’ picking up a yellow on purpose was such a great idea now- will be out after picking-up yellow cards in the previous match vs. Fiorentina. Cris’ absence has caused a castastrophe now that Mensah is injured and it’s not known if he will start. With with four of our five CBs ineligible, the talk is of putting in either Grosso, Toulalan, or Dos Santos in the center back position. I think it will be Toulalan since we don’t have another left back and he has the best defensive skills of the three candidates. This center half injury crisis has really made me miss Sandy Paillot- who’s rotting away on the Grenoble bench right-about-now- and hell, I even miss Cleber Anderson if you can believe that. Needless to say, against a fully fit and hungry Bayern side, this could be a potential disaster.
I think Aulas is going to have to overstock the backline with players, just like the midfield in order to just get by.

Le groupe : Lloris, Vercoutre – Grosso, Boumsong, Mensah, Gassama, Kolodziejczak, Faure – Toulalan, Källström, Makoun, Fabio Santos – Govou, Delgado, Ederson, Keita, Mounier, Fred, Tafer, Benzema.

Lineup:

Lloris
Gassama-Boumsong-Mensah(or Toulalan)-Grosso
Makoun-Toulalan(or Kallstrom)-Ederson
Govou-Benzema(or Fred)-Delgado

I got this line-up from France Football since L’Equipe hasn’t as of yet posted their’s. I have a couple of issues with this line-up: First, if Toulalan does start at CB, then Kallstrom shouldn’t be in the middle of center field. He should go to the left and move Ederson to the right, with Makoun in the middle. And it’s interesting that Faure is in the group, but who knows if it’s just to fill a spot.

Viewing Options:

UEFA/ESPN stream. Espn Deportes usually replays the game about an an hour or two after it airs.
Please post any working streams here.