2012-2013 Ligue 1 Match Thread [R]

tonight's match reminded me even more of the great teams of the last decade than the velodrome smackdown did.

first of all because despite the cold weather it was probably the biggest crowd and certainly the best atmosphere at gerland so far this year... in part because it was the BG87's 25th anniversary (which i wasn't even aware of until i got there).

but also because the whole thing was so professional. OL was clearly better the first half hour and probably the whole first half, but after the break they were naturally very tired, both from the big match three days ago and from the effort put into the first half to grab the lead from a very good montpellier squad. they started hoofing it out of their half and letting MHSC have the ball, but never docilely retreated back to their own 30, always started pressing in the paillade half. RG put in the subs as needed to plug the gaps. then in the last 15 minutes ,when they could smell the stable, they upped their game and finished the job. perfect management of the temps forts and temps faibles. no surprises. never any real danger.

just win baby.

 

it's true, but with the knocks he was taking... gradel should have got a yellow at the same time dabo saw red... in fact you can almost claim the way he shined his shoe on mouhamadou's face deserved red in its own right.

and what to say about alonso's petage de plombs? two stupid yellows in two minutes to walk less than 10 minutes after coming in. galtier must have been cstatic.

anyway, that's all nursery school. the important question? c'est qui les plus forts? bêh, c'est pas les verts! évidemment!

 

the ferrari (ruffier)


the 2CV (vercoutre)

 

here's the difference and the real poop behind this : this is not grenier's first derby or his second or even third. it may be his 20th. he's been playing derbies since he was just a sprout; he got derbies with his mother's milk. to a boy with his background, kickin' ass and takin' names at GG is living THE dream. and clacking a hamstring 10 minutes into the mother of all derbies is THE nightmare.

 

crikey. when grenier went off i said to myself, "well, at least gourcuff is back".

and now i learn he pulled a groin muscle in the derby and is out for the rest of 2012.

 

infuriating match against nancy!

so strange to see one side so obviously superior in talent and physique and yet see the other get the better chances and probably deserve to win. as always there was good, and bad, but above all there was frustrating.

vercoutre put in a good match and saved us more than once, but made a serious error that undid all his good work. RVR getting injured = bad, jordan ferri doing so well replacing him = good. bisevac was great, and accomplished more in terms of passing and percussion than mvuemba and fofana combined, those two were pitiful and the main reason we never got anything good going. lovren was what he was, at least he has a full match under his belt before PSG. but it brings up a very distressing question : with lovren back, umtiti having played as many minutes as anyone the last month, dabo suspended, you're sure to see monzon at LB, right? wrong, which likely means he's been just as bad in practice as in the matches we've seen. a bum. and now we're likely to see umtiti there again against PSG (dabo got TWO matches for his baby headbutt, as much as ibra got for his assassination attempt on ruffier. there's no justice)... at least he does a decent job there.

malbraque useful as always, mvuemba and fofana absolutely useless. with gonalons, grenier and gourcuff all out at least one of them had to really step up, and neither even did an honest night's work. backtracking and square passes don't cut it against the lanterne rouge with ten players behind the ball. lacazette OK, but he's injured now too. lisandro as for lovren, just decent but at least he got some pitch time before the big match this weekend. gomis a beast but very difficult to get anything done back to goal under the circumstances. bastos a big disappointment to me; except for his goal he did very little right; a player you expect to accelerate the game and all he did was slow it down... though a colleague rightly pointed out that when he was on the right (most of the time) he was poor but when he was on the left things were better. and he did get the equalizer.

 

against PSG the cards looked stacked against us. not only are they hotter than a $2 pistol, we are very shorthanded. lacazette is apparently out, and briand ia not ready yet, but the real question is réveillère... with dabo suspended (grrrrrr....) we're down to no real fullbacks unless you count monzon. at least gonalons is back.

lisandro - gomis - bastos​

malbranque​

gonalons - fofana​

umtiti - lovren - bisevac - ferri​

vercoutre​

doesn't look that bad but besides the problems we're going to have on our defensive flanks, there's not much to talk about after the 11, and paris is going to be able to count on 14 bodies in an intense match. i really don't like our chances.

 

well lisandro sure looked determined to get his team going, OL played defensively well keeping zlatan from shooting and making goal saving challenges, umtiti and lovren come to mind
can't say much about the challenge because for one the ref blew the whistle while he was in the air, he was going after the ball but its still a nasty thing to look at

 

looks 110% intentional to me. if what dabo did to gradel is 2 matches this should be 4. but what ibra did to ruffier was between 3 and 4 and he got 1+1. so i'm not holding my breath.

 

the feeling here was that OL can nourish some small regrets. one half to our advantage, one to PSG's (their perhaps more to their advantage, but they didn't score), a upright hit only centimeters from going in... a goal given up in the last seconds of the first half was the difference and make no mistake, paris WON this match, but by the smallest of all possible margins.

considering a) that the match was at the parc and b) that neither grenier nor gourcuff was available (dabo's suspension finally not a problem because umtiti did fine) i think this match showed that we really can play toe-to-toe with PSG and with three teams tied in points the second half of the season should be a barn-burner.