The Kids Take Over: Metz 1 - 5 Lyon

By: Inara | September 15th, 2007

For those of you convinced that Lyon were spiraling to the depths of France’s amateur divisions, I’m very happy to say that they proved again tonight why they are champions. Sure, Metz is a promoted side and haven’t been doing well in L1 so far, but Lyon played their trademark eye catching football - something they haven’t done in a long time.

Benzema lost his hat trick virginity.

Goals: Metz (Gueye 46), Lyon (Benzema 5,36,38, Ben Arfa 58, Juninho 86). Highlights at end of post.

Tactics:

Perrin’s 4-2-2-2:

Vercoutre
Reveillere - Squillaci - Bodmer - Grosso
Toulalan — Juninho
Ben Arfa ————— Kallstrom
Govou — Benzema

Technically a 4-4-2, the formation was pretty fluid and gave Hatem Ben Arfa the freedom to drift in from the wings to play as a support striker for Karim Benzema, with Kim Kallstrom often dropping back to help out Juninho in midfield. I was surprised to see Anthony Reveillere, Fabio Grosso, and Jeremy Toulalan start, but who am I to second guess Alain Perrin?

Two of Perrin’s second half substitutions were defenders. Francois Clerc replaced Reveillere, while Sebastien Squillaci was replaced with Cleber Anderson, who made his first appearance in an OL jersey (albeit for ten minutes).

Kader Keita came on for Benzema towards the end, but by then it was too late for Keita to make much of an impact. At this point Lyon had no true strikers on the pitch, so three wingers, two midfielders, and one adventurous fullback (Grosso) were left to do all the attacking.

Player Performance:

The hero of the night is undoubtedly Benzema, who scored his first hat trick in Ligue 1 (as well as providing an assist). At nineteen years of age, he is France’s best striker with eight goals in seven matches to his name (second placed David Bellion only has five). Considering the fact that he’s scored more in one month than he did all year last year, only a foolish man would bet against Benzema ending the year as one of L1’s top three strikers.

His sidekick, Ben Arfa, who hasn’t played since the match against Lorient, was just as thunderous, not only assisting two of Benzema’s goals but also scoring one himself - which Benzema assisted! In fact, the duo’s chemistry has everyone abuzz, though both of them attribute it to the years they’ve played together in the reserves in and at Lyon. Today they were like Batman and Robin, the superheros Lyon have been searching for.

The fifth goal of the night came from guess what. A special Juninho free kick from 30 meters out. Juni, who hasn’t scored from a direct free kick since January 2007 (against Bayonne), proved that he still had it. His free kick was filled with power and accuracy and completely misled Metz’s goalkeeper.

The other players looked good too. Mathieu Bodmer is looking more and more comfortable as a defender, which has me kind of worried. I’m glad Bodmer is doing a good job, but I don’t want him to forget the fact that first and foremost, he is the second best midfielder that L1 has to offer (after Juninho of course!).

Anderson, who will eventually free Bodmer of these duties, came on in the last ten minutes for Squillaci. I’m not sure why it’s taking so long to integrate Anderson into the squad, but OL trainers claim that his physical conditioning is a month behind the rest of the team (which makes sense, as L1 starts several weeks before the Superliga). It’s highly unlikely Anderson will be starting against Barcelona since he can hardly face one of the best teams in the world with only ten minutes of L1 to his credit.

All three midfielders - Kim Kallstrom, Juninho, and Jeremy Toulalan - looked imposing as usual. Kallstrom and Juninho had many great passes and shots on goal whereas Toulalan was his usual efficient self, hounding his opponents like a terrier. The midfield has always been Lyon’s strongest point, and typically, Lyon conquer a team by first conquering a midfield. I was worried that this ability would be lost with Tiago’s departure, but Kallstrom is even better.

Also, Perrin giving Reveillere extra rest is a strong indication that he’ll be starting against Barcelona on Tuesday. OL’s other fullback, Grosso, had a good game. He was, for once, not crap defensively (but then again Metz weren’t doing much attacking). He had some beautiful crosses, which was the one thing that Eric Abidal could never do. He also had some terrific shots on goal, one of which would have been a goal if it hadn’t been for the reflexes of Metz’s goalkeeper.

And speaking of goalkeepers, Remy Vercoutre had a good match. He wasn’t challenged unduly, but Vercoutre can find the simplest of things challenging, so this game was good for his confidence. He did concede one goal, but it was damn amazing, so he can’t really be faulted for that. He also proved once again that he’s a great shot stopper. Thankfully, Metz didn’t trouble him in the air. Or else the scoreline might be something different.

Match Analysis:

Metz were only in the game for five minutes. It was all over after Benzema scored his first goal, and though it took him half an hour to score another, there was never any doubt that Lyon weren’t finished. This victory, while expected by nearly everyone, is important for several reasons.

First, it puts the players in a positive state of mind for their upcoming trip to Barcelona. There is a huge gulf that separates Metz from Barca, so I won’t go so far as to say that Metz was good practice, but the win reminded Lyon what it’s like to dominate comfortably again. It reminded them why they are champions. And that is important.

Secondly, the players are reaching peak physical conditioning, and as this game showed us, they were tireless, running everywhere, and until the final whistle, played like they had just come onto the pitch.

They’re back!

Benzema and Ben Arfa’s success tonight will make them even more determined to do better next time. Ben Arfa would dearly love to have a prominent role in Lyon’s CL campaign whereas Benzema would love to be the guy who proves OL’s critics wrong by helping Lyon advance deeper into the competition.

Lyon can recover some of their lost pride now that they have returned to L1’s podium. They are in second place behind Nancy, separated by one point, and have a game in hand. I don’t know about you guys, but as much as I like Nancy, I don’t think they’ll be in first place for long.

Most importantly, there is leadership at Lyon once again. Seeing Juninho encouraging his teammates, congratulating the audience, and smoothing things with the referee was a source of comfort not just to me but undoubtedly to the other players, who haven’t had someone to turn to in a while.

Match highlights:

Sam at the France Offside will have more on the rest of L1’s fixtures after tomorrow.