Marseille vs. Lyon: The One We’ve All Been Waiting For

By: John | December 13th, 2008

Ahhhh…the Good Ol’Days….
December 14, 2008
Stade de Gerland
3P.M. EST(21:00 CET, 20:00 GMT)

This Sunday, the match that most of us have penciled-in on our calenders since Hatem Ben Arfa’s defection to Marseille this summer, is finally upon us. After a dissapointing mid-week loss to Bayern in the CL, Lyon look ready to do battle with a second place OM club that looks to take the top spot from OL. Marseille currently have the first placed offense(Lyon are 6th) with (33) goals, compared to OL’s (22). OM have the 12th ranked defense in the league(Lyon is 1st), having allowed (21) goals, to OL’s (12.) A loss will see Lyon even on points at (34) with Marseille, but behind on goal differential.

The biggest brightspots in the Bayern match were the offensive flurry-for Lyon two goals is a flurry- that put Lyon back in the match with a chance to equalize after being three goals down at the half and Karim Benzema looking in top form after his injury layoff. And with the additions of Cris and Juninho- well rested after their suspensions for the Bayern match- and Benzema, who, despite what he might say to the contrary, should be pumped-up about his clash with Ben Arfa, Lyon should be well up to the task of taking-on Marseille.

Recently, both Benzema and Ben Arfa have made comments about each other and the match-up in the press. They both basically claimed that they are not friends, but claimed mutual respect for each other, but Ben Arfa went a little bit further in criticizing the players and staff at Lyon as bieng “classless” and “not willing to attempt to understand his personality.” I’ll have a complete translation of the Le Progres interview in the next post.

History:

I found it interesting that Lyon had a winning record against a club with such a long-established winning tradition as OM. Lyon have 16 wins, 16 draws and 6 losses vs. Marseilles. Lyon haven’t won against Marseille since a 2006 (2-1) win at Gerland. Last year saw Lyon lose at the Velodrome (2-1) and in the prior season saw a (1-1) draw.

Injuries: The usuals: Clerc, Reveillere, Pjanic, Bodmer, and Faure. Piquionne picked-up a knock in last week’s “Neutering” at Nantes and will be out. Both Fred and Kallstrom picked-up slight injuries against Bayern but they are ready for Sunday.

Le groupe:

Lloris,Vercoutre – Gassama, Mensah, Cris, Boumsong, Grosso, Makoun, Toulalan, Fabio Santos, Juninho, Källström, Govou, Ederson, Keita, Benzema, Fred, Delgado, Mounier, Tafer.

Lineup:

L’Equipe’s Probable Lineup:

Lloris
Mensah-Cris-Boumsong-Grosso
Toulalan-Makoun-Juninho
Gouvou-Benzema(or Fred)-Ederson(or/Benzema)