Shit. Steaua vs. Lyon

By: Inara | October 21st, 2008

Lyon are SO not ready for tomorrow. We’ve all seen how badly they’ve been playing the last few weeks…last month, really. Lyon haven’t won a game in ages and have scored only a handful of goals from open play all season. I mean, how sad is it that their best chance of getting three points in Bucharest would be to send their ladies team out there?

October 21, 2008
Stadionul Ghencea, Bucharest
2:45 PM ET (20:45 CET, 19:45 GMT)

Match Background:

Lyon played against Steaua twice before, both games during the 2006/2007 Champions League in the group stages. The first game, in Romania, ended in a 3-0 victory for Lyon while the second, at the Gerland, ended in a 1-1 draw (by then, OL had sealed qualification and top spot in the group, so they had played their reserves).

However, it’s been two years since then, and Steaua is no longer that naive team debuting in the Champions League after a long absence. They held Fiorentina to a goalless draw in Italy and lost 1-0 to Bayern at home. So they definitely aren’t pushovers. They’ve collected only one point so far (only one less than Lyon, fyi), and have yet to find the net. But they’ll be confident because they know they are facing a Lyon team that is a shadow of the one that came to Bucharest two years ago.

Not being that familiar with Steaua, I can’t say much about their current crop of players except that several of them are members of the Romania National Team (the very same one that has been giving Les Bleus the runaround). They also have the rather unstable Gigi Becali as club owner. This is the same Becali that tried to disguise a two million euro bribe as money for chocolates, that is routinely investigated for corruption, and that threatens his players with pay cuts if they don’t win.

Steaua will be gunning for at least four points from their upcoming double header with Lyon. That’s the minimum they will need if they want to retain hopes of making it to the next round. Problem is, for them to do that means Lyon have to lose and draw those very same games.

Ahem. Lyon will have to do what they did last year, which is use this double header to wake up their campaign. Last year, OL boosted their chances by convincingly beating Stuttgart twice. But the difference was that Lyon had already woken up from their funk last season by the time their third CL game came around. This year, that’s not the case as Lyon are still in their funk.

Currently, Steaua are in 3rd place in Romania’s Liga 1, and with nine games played so far, they’ve won six, drawn two, and lost one, with 18 goals scored and 6 conceded. Ironically, Lyon have a nearly identical record with six wins, two draws, and one loss, except they’ve only scored 14 goals and conceded 8. But at least they’re still in first place. So yay?

Player news:

Lyon’s medical ward is once again full. Not only will long term absentees Francois Clerc and Sidney Govou be out, but Fabio Santos has a muscle injury, and both Mathieu Bodmer and John Mensah are having problems with their adductor muscles. So they’ll be missing as well.

Le groupe lyonnais: Lloris, Vercoutre – Gassama, Grosso, Réveillère, Cris, Boumsong, Faure – Juninho, Källström, Makoun, Toulalan, Delgado, Pjanic, Ederson – Mounier, Piquionne, Fred, Keita, Benzema

The only good news is that at least Lyon have an actual left back healthy. That wasn’t the case for the last several weeks. Sebastian Faure and Lamine Gassama have been included in the squad as precautions. No room for Thimothee Kolodziejczak though.

Expected lineup:

Lloris
Reveillere – Cris – Boumsong – Grosso!!!!
Makoun – Toulalan – Juninho
Keita – Benzema – Ederson

For one brief moment, we saw a real defense that was lined up against Lille. Granted, it didn’t work that well, but at least it was something that could have improved over time. But with both Mathieu Bodmer and John Mensah out, it looks like Jean-Alain Boumsong is back in as Cris’s partner in the back. Great. He hasn’t started for Lyon since the Fiorentina match, and that was a game to forget. But at least Raymond Domenech played him for France, so he’s not totally rusty.

In midfield, Jeremy Toulalan will be returning after his suspension against Lille, alongside of Jean II Makoun. Juninho also looks to be a sure bet to start. I don’t see Puel starting any other midfield.

Up front, I don’t want to see Kader Keita start, but I don’t know who else possibly can since Sidney Govou is out. It’s a tossup over Ederson or Anthony Mounier, but my guess is Puel will trust in Ederson’s experience. It’s also possible that Puel might shift Ederson to the right and put Mounier on the left, but I don’t think that’s likely. And of course Karim Benzema up front.

I will surely break my computer if Fred starts up top and Benzema is put on the left. That is not an idle threat.

Viewing Options:

As far as I’m aware, this game won’t be broadcast on television. It looks like the only way to watch this is either to hope you get a free link that works or buy a stream from UEFA.com for $8.

Expected Result:

As much as I’d like a goal fest like Lyon’s last visit to Romania, I don’t see our current team, in the state its in, to do much besides sloppy defending and pray that one of their counterattacks works. So I’m going to go with a 0-1 for Lyon. That’s me being an optimist.